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impossible to reach, is the want, in very many cases, of direct 

 intercourse and trade between the producer and the consumer. 

 The middle men stand between to pocket the profits. The 

 farmer does not get his fair proportion of the money that the 

 consumer has to pay, while the consumer is obliged to pay a 

 larger relative price for every article as a profit to the middle 

 man. I know, for instance, of a milk company that monopo- 

 lizes the dairy product for miles around, paying the farmer 

 about thirty-five cents a "can" of ten quarts, or three and a 

 half cents a quart for milk, and taking it to Boston where the 

 cream is sold to the confectioners at a high price, and the 

 balance, consisting largely of water, sold to the unfortunate 

 consumers at eight and nine cents a quart. It is an evil that 

 affects a large class of th-e community, affects the town as well 

 as the country resident, the purchaser as well as the original 

 seller, and I am sure if the farmer could devise any plan by 

 which to avoid it, there would be plenty to lend a helping 

 hand. I do not mean to suggest that every farmer can go into 

 the milk business and become a retailer. It would be a 

 dangerous experiment, for it is extremely difficult — next to 

 impossible — to become a milk-man in Boston and remain 

 honest. An honest man will soon be run off the track unless 

 he has capital enough to back him. It reminds me of what an 

 old friend of mine stated at a meeting of the trustees of the 

 Essex Agricultural Society. Some one advocated very strenu- 

 ously that the society should encourage the trials of speed of 

 horses, on the ground that it would give to the horse trot the 

 advantage of some character and respectability. Make it, in a 

 word, a good, honest, downright orthodox trot. Mr. John W. 

 Proctor rose and said in his quaint way, " I have always 

 noticed in the course of my long life of observation, that when 

 respectable men begin to attend a horse race, they soon cease 

 to be respectable." He sat down, and that ended the 

 discussion. 



Well now it is very much so with the attempts of an honest 

 milk-dealer. He begins with a determination to sell only 

 pure milk ; but the combination is too strong for him ; it will 

 undersell him, the best he can do, and it can do it. The 

 whole system of marketing needs to be changed, and only a 

 radical change can effect the object. 



