22 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Fub. Doc. 



niitted from one milk producer to another in the years that 

 have passed, and since then handed down through the suc- 

 ceeding generations. Sometimes this dissatisfaction seems to 

 have been localized or confined to certain sections, and yet 

 during the years of its existence, it has had its run in prac- 

 tically every neighborhood supplying the Boston market. 

 Because of this general dissatisfaction hundreds and probably 

 thousands have given up producing milk for market, but mar- 

 ket milk production has been taken up by others and the 

 difficulty has persisted, and now in an increasingly acute 

 form it seems to have become more generalized throughout 

 the whole milk-producing territory. To me, this condition 

 is not, under the circumstances, at all surprising or un- 

 natural, and while all will agree that the price paid for milk 

 has been perhaps the most important factor, the present dis- 

 satisfaction is not, in my opinion, due wholly to the prices 

 received or not received for dairy products. For many years 

 agriculture in general in New England, and milk production 

 in particular, whether for butter-making or for city consump- 

 tion, has been regarded and commonly referred to by farmers 

 as " ceaseless toil and drudgery," rather than as constant, 

 steady employment ; as " downright slavery, sixteen hours 

 a day, week in and week out, with no break on Sunday," 

 ratlier than as the daily preparation of a finished food product 

 for a reliable cash market ; as the " never a chance to get 

 away for a few days so long as one is tied down to milking 

 cows " argument, rather than considering one's self as the 

 proprietor of a business, with no one else to dictate how it 

 shall be managed. 



Circumstances which cannot always be controlled often 

 force people to engage in some line of work for which they 

 have a positive and inborn dislike, for which in various ways 

 they are eminently vmfitted, and in which, regardless of their 

 markets, they can never really succeed. This in the past has 

 too frequently been the case among the rural population of 

 New England, and in no small degree it has been and now is 

 doubtless responsible for the unsatisfactory condition of 

 aifairs on many a New England farm. While attending a 



