DISTRIBUTION OF MILK 



"In the above table it appears that if each dealer should 

 pay to his producers at full price for fluid milk for only that 

 portion of his supply which corresponded to the total per- 

 centage of fluid milk sold on the entire market, dealer 

 No. i would have overpaid for 4,250 pounds, while dealer 

 No. 3 would have underpaid for 4,375 pounds. In the 

 former table it appears that dealer No. 3 actually mar- 

 keted 45,000 pounds at full price, but in the lower table 

 he paid for only 40,625 pounds at full price. On the other 

 hand, dealers Nos. i and 2 paid for more than they sold 

 at full price. In short, dealers Nos. i and 2 would sustain 

 losses by this transaction, while dealer No. 3 would have 

 an unfair gain. It is obvious that the adjustments could 

 be easily made by the dealers themselves, through some 

 form of exchange or clearing house, whereby those dealers 

 who have sustained undeserved losses can be recompensed 

 by those dealers who have made unmerited profits. The 

 undeserved losses and the unmerited profits are exactly 

 equal to each other, consequently the exchange could 

 bring about an adjustment between the dealers of these 

 differences without affecting their individual business 

 interests in the slightest degree." 1 



The cost of meeting surplus and shortage has been 

 placed at different figures. The Alderney Dairies of Phila- 

 delphia had kept records for twenty years prior to 1913 

 and from these calculated that at that time it had cost 



1 Report of the Mayors' Committee on Milk, City of New York, 1917, pp. 68-70. 



