xiv BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. 



treated and untreated, according to results desired. All farmers 

 should avail themselves of the results of the latest experiments 

 on the use of these phosphates, and a circular published by the 

 Board on "How to Buy Fertilizers" should also be carefully 

 studied. As the fertilizer question "becomes more acute, as it 

 is bound to do, we must depend more upon animal fertilizers 

 and soiling crops for keeping up soil fertility, and in many 

 places, not only in the country in general, but in our own 

 State in particular, animal husbandry should be revived, and 

 many of the practices now common in the congested areas of 

 Europe will have to be adopted. 



The Milk Situation. 



The charge has been made during the past few years that 

 Boston is a closed market for the sale of milk, and that it is 

 impossible to sell milk here on a fair competitive basis. Few 

 people realize the amount of machinery and outfit necessary to 

 handle milk in a safe way throughout the year; even the person 

 or firm handling only a few quarts of milk must have the 

 equipment for properly caring for this very perishable food. 

 Therefore it is impossible for every farmer to maintain his own 

 dairy outfit. Several courses are open to the farmer who wishes 

 to raise milk: he can keep enough animals to afford to put in 

 special dairy apparatus on his farm, and deliver milk to city 

 or town customers direct, as is now done by quite a few; he 

 may sell his milk to the dealer in the city who maintains a 

 small dairy plant; or he may sell to the large contractors. 

 Whichever course he may pursue, he has as free a market as 

 does the farmer who sells fruit or vegetables, for both these 

 latter i)roducts are in direct competition with similar products 

 from other States and from our own State. 



Along with milk production in some sections of this State 

 should go the raising of dairy cattle, in order that it shall not 

 be necessary for the farmer to purchase new animals each year, 

 but by producing his own, derive the benefit of this profit. 

 High-grade animals should be ])roduced, as it costs as much to 

 raise a scrub as it does a cow producing 8,000 pounds of milk; 

 and no farmer in our State can aft'ord to keep a cow which 

 produces less than 6,000 pounds of milk per year. 



