148 THE MARKETING OF WHOLE MILK 



rated the loss for that part of the milk worked up into 

 butter. 1 High freight and overhead expenses, the lack 

 of a good market for skimmed milk, and loss partly due, 

 it is claimed, to the watering of milk by producers formed 

 an obstacle too great for the United Association, and 

 finally the association confiscated one whole month's ship- 

 ments of many of its members to pay back losses. After 

 that it disintegrated rapidly.^ The dealers, moreover, 

 were making a vigorous fight against the union. The 

 larger dealers bought or established creameries and butter 

 factories in various sections of western Pennsylvania and 

 central and western New York, thus reaching out for 

 their supply beyond the territory controlled by the as- 

 sociation. The introduction of so-called "foreign" milk 

 into Philadelphia was a factor for many years in depressing 

 the price to the producers. The organization was strongest 

 from 1890 to 1895 ' and the New Jersey branch of the 

 organization lasted until after the formation of the Phila- 

 delphia Milk Shippers' Union.* 



The pioneer movement from which the Milk Shippers' 

 Union developed started in New Jersey about 1 896. The 

 Union was organized on a small scale about 1 898,^ but was 

 not strong nor especially active for some years. Indeed 

 the Report of the United States Industrial Commission 

 for 1900 makes the statement that the Philadelphia milk 

 producers were unorganized at that time.® By December, 

 1904, however, the Milk Shippers' Union included nearly 

 all the leading shippers of milk to the Philadelphia mar- 



• Letter from J. Walter Pancoast, Woodstown, N. J., May 17, 1919. 

 *Ibid. 



• Rural New Yorker, Aug. 3, 1895. 



• Letter from J. Walter Pancoast. 

 ^Ibid. 



' Report of Commission, Vol. VI, p. 390. 



