222 THE MARKETING OF WHOLE MILK 



the entire country that helped bring milk prices somewhat 

 nearer to the level of other prices. Certainly a study of 

 the price charts offers little ground for any fears on the 

 part of consumers that they are in the hands of a "milk 

 producers* trust/' as our daily papers sometimes charge. 

 And this fear will continue groundless so long as every 

 man is relatively free to go from one line of farming to an- 

 other as he finds one or another more profitable, or to 

 increase or decrease his milk production as he sees fit. 

 Herein is the big difference between a true monopoly and 

 a farmers' organization as at present constituted. The 

 monopolist a manager or a board of directors of a large 

 corporation decides to curtail production so as to realize 

 a higher price. The entire control of the quantity to be 

 produced is centralized. In a farmers' organization- 

 be it a milk producers' association or a cotton growers' 

 organization each member is a law unto himself. Each 

 may contract to sell all he produces through his organi- 

 zation, or he may even contract to produce only a cer- 

 tain amount. But with millions of scattered producers, 

 monopoly methods would seem to be impossible, ex- 

 cept for very short periods, say a few months or a 

 year. 



Perhaps one of the biggest weaknesses of producers' 

 organizations of to-day is that the members expect to 

 accomplish too much along the line of price increases and 

 become discouraged if appreciable increases are not forth- 

 coming. 



Sectional variations in prices have often been com- 

 mented upon as though they were wholly due to differ- 

 ences in the bargaining ability of organized producers 

 in one section as compared with unorganized producers 

 in another. This is undoubtedly the fact to some extent. 



