32 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [P. D. 4. 



tension of new subjects in agriculture to this entire section. 

 To accomplish some of these results a large force of trained 

 men and women have been engaged and are now in the fields 

 and the Board wishes them success in their work. 



The Milk Situation. 



References to the milk question over sixty years ago show us 

 that we are not any better off to-day than the people of that 

 time were, for while prices of cattle feed and milk have risen, 

 the proportion of costs to prices received remains very nearly 

 the same, and, so far as figures can show, farmers were losing 

 money on strictly dairy operations then as now. 



The past year has been marked with an increased agitation 

 on this vexed question, not alone in our State, but it has 

 become a nation-wide question to such an extent that as a war 

 measure the National Food Administrator is now seeking tO' 

 appoint sectional committees which shall have some authority 

 in settling prices so that there may be a fair supply of milk. 



The increasing price of grain, labor and cows, and the high 

 prices realized for cattle at the slaughterhouses, have reduced 

 the dairy herds of the country to an alarming degree, and still 

 further promise to reduce them unless some check can be 

 applied; and it would seem that the only check possible Avould 

 be that of securing an adequate price to the producer. 



The milk business more than any other form of agriculture 

 seems to invite the theory that low prices to consumers must 

 be made, no matter what the cost of production is. 



The year has been marked with great activity on the part of 

 the New England Milk Producers' Association, which has 

 called strikes of producers in certain sections which have been 

 instrumental in forcing the wholesale price to 8 cents in the 

 Boston market, and slightly more than this in some other cities 

 of the State. The abolition of the leased-car system does not 

 seem to have in any perceptible degree lessened the agitation 

 of this question, although it may have made possible a more 

 free movement of milk. 



A New England-wide survey on the cost of milk produced 

 was made during the past summer by the agricultural com- 



