A COW CLEARING-HOUSE 
For New England Milk Producers. 
The stockyards at Brighton. Mass., are located 
about five miles from the business center of Boston. 
As will be seen by the group of pictures taken at 
unloading and yarding time on a recent Tuesday, 
there is a miscellaneous business in calves, sheep. 
conditions which made milk production unprofitable. 
When the margin of profit between the cost of feed 
and labor and the price of milk is small, it is evi¬ 
dent that scrub or semi-scrub cows are out of the 
question. They are unskilled labor working at a 
job where skilled labor is needed. Hence a weeding 
out process has been going on. Some have merely 
sold the unprofitable cows and gone into other lines 
A man who wanted say five or ten good cows 
might find them after searching for a day or two 
in his own or neighboring counties, but the chances 
would be against it unless in a section where raising 
cows for market was a standard industry. From such 
needs cow markets like that at Brighton have grown, 
and, instead of going to his neighboring town or 
county, the farmer who wants a few cows goes to 
TYPICAL 
SCENES AT THE STOCKYARDS AT BRIGHTON, MASS. 
Fig. 417. 
hogs, fat steers, an occasional “long-liorn,” and b 
' "" s, sent to the block because whatever dairy u 
fulness they may have had is over. But by far I 
greatest volume of trade is in milch cows, and it 
lor tlli>s feature that the Brighton stockyards i 
known all over the East. 
Dairying 
land—some 
°f the man 
has had its ups and downs in New Eng- 
quite serious downs—partly the fault 
or the cow, and partly because of market 
of farming, and others have been re-stocking with 
better animals, carrying more or less pure blood of 
the breeds they represent. Men willing to take time 
in developing a dairy herd have started with a pure¬ 
bred sire and a few cows, and built on this founda¬ 
tion as largely as they saw fit. But many want 
quicker results than this, and on their demand the 
business of raising- cows for sale has been developed 
to large proportions. 
Boston, practically certain that he will find what is 
desired among the hundreds of animals sent there 
from New England and Northern New York. Every 
Tuesday the stock trains unload in the yards at 
Brighton, and \\ atertowu, which is a short distance 
away, a large number of cows. About S00 were on 
hand the day these notes were made, many picked 
np by speculators, who with their men are continu¬ 
ally traveling through the farming sections and 
