No. 4.] MILK PROBLEM. 39 



why the farmer shoiihl live like Polanders any more than 

 the merchant or the mannfactnrer ? Almost every farmer 

 I know is proud to be a farmer. There is nothing nnpopnlar 

 about it, the only question is, is it profitable ? Now, the 

 unprofitable kinds of business always seek the profitable kind, 

 and the latter draw help and draw business from the unpros- 

 perous business. Now, if conditions were such that every 

 man could get a good living at farming, everybody would 

 be in the business. They all admit it is a pleasant busi- 

 ness and a healthful business, and that there is no business 

 in the world so independent as farming; and if as good a 

 living could be made on the farm as elsewhere we would not 

 have to talk about educating people to go back to the land, 

 and all that sort of thing ; they would go there by the natural 

 law of the commercial world. 



One of our chief difficulties is in regard to the help ques- 

 tion. Mr. Parsons says that the Poles won't even milk. 

 Now, that isn't a disagreeable thing to do ; you can do that 

 and be thinking about something else. If these Poles were 

 paid as much as they were paid in the factories and other 

 places they would just as soon milk cows as do anything else. 

 If the farming business was profitable, so that we could pay 

 our help as much as they get in other occupations, we would 

 have no trouble in getting help. 



The speaker says that the farmer who doesn't keep accounts 

 is going out of business. The reverse of that is true ; it is 

 the man who does keep records that goes out of business. 

 It is they who think they are making a profit when they are 

 really making a loss who stay in the business. 



I think, however, that the most important thing is that 

 we get together upon this transportation question. It is an 

 outrage upon JNfassachusetts for any railroad to go into the 

 northern part of New York or go to Canada or Northern 

 Vermont or way down in Maine and ship milk in from there 

 and charge no more for transporting the same quantities 

 for that vast distance than they do for 30 or 40 miles out 

 here in Massachusetts. We can control that matter if we 

 want to, and if we try to, and it is the duty of us as farmers 



