i 3 6 THE MARKETING OF WHOLE MILK 



fourteenth century, there were combinations of agricul- 

 tural laborers demanding higher wages and probably also 

 of villiens demanding lower rents. 1 



The granger movement in the United States beginning 

 in the late sixties was a most ambitious attempt to secure 

 by collective action economic opportunity apparently not 

 available to the individual farmers acting alone. The 

 grangers proposed to deal collectively with large manufac- 

 turers so as to get cheaper or otherwise more satisfactory 

 service, and actually succeeded in accomplishing this in 

 many instances. Other organizations in various parts of 

 the country have followed along lines very similar to those 

 laid out by the early grangers. It is in the milk business 

 that collective bargaining on the part of farmers has 

 taken a form most nearly comparable with its form in the 

 industrial field. 



With the development of our large cities and the conse- 

 quently increasing separation of the producers and con- 

 sumers of milk, and with the concentration of the milk 

 business of the cities in the hands of relatively few large 

 dealers, the position of the milk producer has come to be 

 very similar to that of the individual laborer. Along with 

 these changes has come the modern demand for a sanitary 

 milk, in the production of which larger and larger amounts 

 of specialized capital are required. The modern dairyman 

 supplying fresh milk for direct consumption must have 

 a herd of high producing, often tuberculin* tested cows, 

 a well-equipped, sanitary barn, and usually a milk house 

 furnished with cooling and cleaning facilities of modern 

 type. Frequently milking machines are used for the milk- 

 ing. All of this means that the modern dairyman has a 

 very heavy investment in a kind of capital so highly spe- 



1 Cheney, E. P., Industrial and Social History of England, p. 105. 



