140 THE MARKETING OF WHOLE MILK 



ceived most of its supply, New York, New Jersey, Con- 

 neticut, Massachusetts, and Pennsylvania, and early 

 in 1889 an organization later known as the Five States 

 Milk Producers* Union was formed in Oxford, Chenango 

 County, New York. 1 In October of the same year three 

 hundred farmers met at Middletown, Orange County, to 

 further plans for organizing branch unions on all railroads 

 shipping milk to Greater New York. 2 Ten thousand pro- 

 ducers were supplying the city of New York at that time, 

 and these, it was claimed, because of lack of organization, 

 were helpless in the hands of about one hundred organized 

 dealers. The ultimate object of the association was the 

 formation of a cooperative stock company capitalized at 

 about $500,000 to furnish milk direct to consumers, a plan 

 said to have been in successful operation in London at 

 that time for nineteen years. 3 The farmers were to take 

 a twenty-five dollar share for each can of milk of forty 

 quarts furnished daily. An agent at each shipping point 

 was to receive and forward the milk and cream to a cen- 

 tral depot just outside New York City. 4 This ambitious 

 plan, however, was not be to taken up until extensive 

 organization of local unions had been effected, and this 

 organization required time. The work of the producers* 

 union was not spectacular, but it accomplished a great 

 deal in uniting scattered farmers and acting as an agent 

 through which their claims might be stated and pressed 

 in dealing with the Milk Exchange. Late in 1891, for 

 example, the union won a case in which it charged the 

 New York Milk Exchange with being a combination 



1 Cultivator and Country Gentleman, Oct. 31, 1889. 



2 Ibid., Oct. 24, 1889; Ibid., Oct. 3, 1889. 

 * Ibid., Oct. 31, 1889. 



< Ibid. 



