112 
TIlc Suppli/ of Milk to Labourers. 
cannot be recovered in a clay. Mr. Gilbert Murray, Elvaston, 
Derby, has favoured me with an interesting communication on 
the ignorance of dairying and the educational effects of cow- 
keeping. It would cultivate in the labourer, Mr. Murray thinks, 
the virtue of more settled habits, increase his interest in and 
attachment to the soil, and afford an early industrial training to 
the children. " Unfortunately," Mr. Murray adds, " the majority 
of the wives of agricultural labourers in the midland counties 
cannot even milk a cow, and are perfectly ignorant of the simplest 
details of dairy management." Mr. Murray, however, has the 
agency of an estate on which there are a number of small " takes " 
of from two to six acres. Many of the occupiers are not constant 
agricultural labourers, though they assist at busy seasons. The 
families consume the skim-milk and a part of the butter ; the 
butter-milk is used for pig-feeding. At the present time some of 
these small holders are selling all the milk. The buildings are 
wooden home-built erections, costing 10/. for sufficient accommo- 
dation for one cow and a calf. As the interest in small holdings 
is reviving, I will quote Mr. Murray on the subject. He says : — 
" When fully established on an estate they would he a strong incentive to 
yonng labourers and servants of both sexes to lay by their slender savings, 
with which on marriage to set up housekeeping, and eventually become 
the owners of cows. This is the class to encourage. A young man with 
a rising family would be more benefited than one whose family were grown 
up and gone away. As already stated, the great obstacle is the absence of 
skill and experience in the wife of the labourer." 
As an expedient for providing milk for children in certain 
districts, it may be proper for large farmers and proprietors to 
supply it at a low price to their labourers' families ; but milk 
will never be supplied generally as a matter of favour at less 
than the market price, so as to render it an article of common 
consumption. Nor do I think that milk can be supplied gene- 
rally by large farmers at a consuming price without loss, owing 
to the cost attending the distribution. That awkward item, 
labour, forms a considerable part of the price of milk everywhere 
except at the very spot where the cow is milked. I believe that 
the distribution of milk in London, after its arrival, costs Id. 
per quart ; and as the producer receives 2d. per quart, it cannot 
be sold at less than 4r/. ; so that the cost of distribution amounts 
to 25 per cent, of the retail price. 
It is evident that milk could not be delivered at the cottages, 
even in a dairy district, without a considerable addition to the 
cost of the article compared with what it cost the farmer when it 
formed part of the diet of his labourers living in his house. 
Nor can it, as a rule, be fetched from the dairies without a 
similar enhancement of price. Unless, therefore, milk for 
