The RURAL NEW-YORKER 
321 
Suggestions for the Dairymen’s League 
LEAGUE OFFICERS.—Lot the governing body of 
the League consist of two delegates from each county 
organization represented in the League, one member 
at least of which delegation shall be a working 
fanner; that is, one actually and personally engaged 
in the daily operation of his farm, and dependent 
thereon for his livelihood. Let this body meet at 
intervals as may be necessary, delegates’ expenses 
paid, including remuneration for time spent, and let 
it fix the price of milk for a stated period, that price 
to be based on an average cost of production plus a 
fair profit. No business can hope to succeed on any 
other basis, nor is it expected to. No legislative or 
other investigating body would seriously attempt to 
upset the findings of such a body of men represent¬ 
ing the agriculture of the State and with the facts 
in their hands. Farmers may be officially notified 
through their local organizations of such minimum 
price so fixed, and no member of*the League will sell 
for less. Ilis neighbor may safely lie left to see to 
that. That the method here suggested is somewhat 
similar to that employed by organized labor is prob¬ 
ably true, but, if followed out, it is equally efficient, 
it cannot help to be satisfactory to producers and, 
after all, that is the real purpose of the League. 
SIMPLE EFFICIENCY NEEDED.—The proposed 
organization with its involved and expensive organi¬ 
zation. is only an elaboration of the one that has al¬ 
ready so completely failed to obtain for the dairyman 
that for which the organization was formed—a 
profit-sharing price, and the elaboration of its plans 
must consume an enormous sum of money. If a sim¬ 
ple and more efficient plan can be evolved, might not 
the money he better spent to form a fund for the 
prosecution of the contest that is inevitable if the 
price for fluid milk for city consumption is to be 
based on the price of butter? That means a fictitious 
market price for butter and a return to the three and 
four-eent milk of three years ago. The buying public 
has unmistakably repudiated even 50-cent butter in 
favor of cheaper substitutes. Beyond the peradven- 
ture of a doubt, if the future price of milk is to be 
based on the market price of butter, there will be 
the highest prices paid for milk and butter ever seen, 
but it will be because of the low prices paid for milk 
under this new policy, so many farmers will cease 
production, that its scarcity will create them. The 
League will have no surplus to worry it—nor any 
members. Benevolence in business and concern for 
the other fellow who has no concern for you (see 
italics in last paragraph of the announcement of 
March 22) belong to the period after success has been 
achieved and it can he afforded as a luxury. Until 
that time each business must mind its own business 
interests solely and exclusively. One cannot run 
counter to the rules governing general business with¬ 
out running amuck. “Cost and a Fair Percentage of 
Profit or Bust” should he the foundation stone of the 
League, and with that slogan one could safely guar¬ 
antee the hacking of every dairyman within its 
sphere of influence. 
SCALE OF PRICES.—During the past two years 
the top price paid for milk in January has represent¬ 
ed the nearest approach to a fair return, and no one 
will suggest that it costs loss to produce milk in 
New York State in the four months next succeeding. 
Notwithstanding this, in both years the League prices 
have been reduced monthly until the May price was 
and will be hardly more than one-half the January 
price. League leaders have preached organization 
and its benefits only to meet distributors and agree 
to prices that are of their own confession below the 
cost of production. No business on earth other than 
farming would be asked to stand such a strain, and 
no other class of men would endure it. In the face 
of a rising market for grain, labor, seed, fertilizer, 
cattle—in fact, everything required on the farm and 
by the farmer—the dairyman is complacently offered 
a drop of a cent a month until July, and the persua¬ 
sion employed is the club called “Surplus," and its 
corresponding autumnal shortage. Dissatisfaction, 
discontent and loss of faith in the League have fol¬ 
lowed and will continue to follow persistence of this 
policy. 
SURPLUS AND SHORTAGE.—The League an¬ 
nouncement of March 22 concedes surplus and short¬ 
age to he the sole and only cause of its failure to 
protect its members from loss, and offers its new 
and complicated plan with infinite possibilities for 
expense as a remedy for the mistakes of the old one. 
The two first announced objects of the new plan have 
to do exclusively with regulation of the surplus and 
the third with the pooling of the proceeds of its sales 
to equalize the price to all members, which is in itself 
fundamentally wrong because it puts a premium on 
slack dairying and selfish production. The inference 
is fair that the best plan is the simplest plan that 
eliminates this surplus. It must he remembered here 
that there are two kinds of producers. 
1. The conscientious dairyman who aims to main¬ 
tain as near as can be an even supply of milk to his 
distributor the year around, and who is really as 
near a successful dairyman as a dairyman can hope 
to be successful. 
2. The Summer producer, who without care or 
consideration for his distributor or neighbor refuses 
in any way to regulate his herd, grain his cattle, 
maintain his flow of milk, and who regularly pursues 
the .practice of his butter-making ancestors, permit¬ 
ting all his cows to freshen in the Spring and dry up 
with the grass in the Fall. As a cowman he is really 
a failure, and as a producer he is the real dairyman’s 
worst enemy, fattening, as he does, off the labor and 
honesty of his neighbor, the conscientious producer. 
SOURCES OF SURPLUS.—And there are equally 
two sources of surplus. 
1. The normal surplus of the dairyman, inci¬ 
dental to the natural tendency of cows to freshen in 
the Spring and the turning out to grass. This is not 
so great among well-regulated grained herds as is 
commonly supposed, and this normal surplus is read¬ 
ily absorbed by the warmer weather,, increased con¬ 
sumption of milk and cream, in the manufacture of 
ice cream, cream frozen and conserved against a Fall 
shortage, and the hundred other ways known to the 
business. 
2. What may he called the abnormal surplus pro¬ 
duced by the Summer producer above mentioned, 
which surplus is in enormous amount, and is in real¬ 
ity the cause of the constant upset condition of the 
business, and which furnishes the club with which 
for years the distributors have been able to knock 
down the price of milk below a living one for the pro¬ 
ducer. 
A BUSINESS PROPOSITION.—Eliminate this 
surplus and that club is splintered. The only weak 
plank in the farmer’s platform in his campaign for a 
fair price is removed. Ilis demand becomes a busi¬ 
ness proposition, fair and clean cut, subject to the 
rules governing every business proposition. As long 
as he looks to his customer to carry his burdens he is 
hopelessly at a disadvantage. But there is no reason 
why an honest and conscientious producer should 
carry the burden of these Summer producers on his 
shoulders. In every other line of business endeavor, 
each manufacturing plant, and every farm, is a plant 
in itself—stands or falls on its own merits and man¬ 
agement. It does not depend upon its competitors or 
its patrons to make good shortages or bear its bur¬ 
dens. 
MILK AT BUTTER PRICES.—The fluid milk 
market is a perishable one, and the butter market is 
stable, capable of provision against under-production 
and of storage of over-production. It has a daily 
market quotation that he who runs may read. Let 
dairymen sell their milk, stipulating their production 
at so many cans per day for the year, with a reason¬ 
able variation of say 25 per cent. When the producer 
makes over his contract plus his allowance, let him 
keep it at home, or his buyer must take it for the 
price of its butterfat content at the market price for 
butter, the same as if he were selling at a creamery. 
If his production runs under his contract more than 
allowance, let him take butter price for his milk 
until he recovers his contract minimum. We know 
from experience in a small way that this plan sta¬ 
bilized the whole business, eliminated the surplus 
bogy, enabled the distributor to know what supply 
to depend upon, and it compels each man to stand 
squarely on his own business foundation. If the pro 
dueer wants to run on a butter basis when butter is 
high and on a milk basis when butter is low. let him 
take his own chances and not depend on his neigh¬ 
bor to pull financial chestnuts out of the fire for him. 
Let him play the game; the League will be none the 
worse without him unless he does play it. and he 
will soon come to see what he ought to do and be the 
better off for it. 
A SIMPLE PLAN.—Such a plan does away with 
the complicated plan now offered, including two or¬ 
ganizations, certificates of indebtedness, incorpora¬ 
tions within incorporations, debentures and what 
not, forms of organization that no “plain farmer” 
can hope to understand or find his way about in. A 
plan for the League that includes both control of pro¬ 
duction and distribution of milk for consumption, as 
well as a supervising and benevolent interest in the 
welfare of producer, distributor and consumer, is 
more comprehensive than is usually attempted by a 
new organization. It may perhaps at some future 
time be successful, hut in the present chaotic condi¬ 
tion of the business let us confine ourselves to the 
purposes for which the plain farmers thought and 
still think it was formed—to get for them a fair price 
for their product. Let us have the simplest form of 
government possible, thoroughly representative and 
composed, in part, at least, of men who tend their 
own cattle. Let us first become thoroughly and suc¬ 
cessfully organized as dairymen, even as the labor or¬ 
ganization are organized, and concern ourselves ex¬ 
clusively with obtaining for ourselves the cost of our 
product plus a fair profit based on our capitalization 
as compared with other business of equal capitaliza¬ 
tion. Then will it he time enough to concern our¬ 
selves with distribution, co-operative buying, con¬ 
sumers, etc., after that is done, clarence Johnson. 
The May Price For Milk 
O N the basis of quotations on butter and cheese 
we figure the price of milk for May this way: 
There is ,S4 of a pound of fat in 1 lb. of butter and 
2 lbs. of fat in 1(H) lbs. of 3 per cent milk; 
3. -f- .S4 = 3.57 lbs. of butter in 100 lbs. of milk. 
Butter averaged 05c per lb. for the month. Hence 
3.57 -5- .05 = $2.22 -f $1.00 for skim-milk = $3.32 
per ewt. for milk. Uheese averaged 33.5c, high grade, 
but an average of .322 was adopted, and 9.104 lbs. to 
the cwt. of 3 per cent milk gives us $2.90 4- .22 for 
whey makes it $3.13. or an average for butter and 
cheese of $3.25. Subtract the 15c allowance and we 
have $3.10 per cwt. for 3 per cent milk. 
The April price of cheese seems to have been fig¬ 
ured on a higher score than for May. It would help 
the figuring if we could know just the grade of cheese 
which is taken as a basis. 
The difference between the high and average this 
month makes a difference of 7c per cwt. on the 
price of milk on the cheese basis, and 3.5c on the 
butter and cheese average. 
In butter we have a legal limit of 16 per cent water 
and curd and salt to make an overrun of 17 per cent, 
leaving S3 per cent of pure fat. The usual trade 
allowance, however, is 16 per cent, leaving 84 per 
cent fat. In figuring the amount of butter in 100 lbs. 
of 4 per cent milk the dealers take the 4 lbs. of fat 
as the base, and 16 per cent of it as the overrun, 
giving them 4.64 lbs. of butter. The correct base is 
not the pure fat but the butter. If we divide 4 lbs. 
of fat by .84, the fat in a pound of butter, it gives us 
4.76 lbs., the correct weight of butter in 100 lbs. of 
4 per cent milk. This makes a difference of 9c in 
100 lbs. of 4 per cent milk this month on the butter 
basis and 4.5c on the average. Cheese is figured on 
the assumption that 3.6 per cent milk is used in its 
manufacture, and it is fair to allow for the grade of 
milk actually used: but milk is figured on the 3 per 
cent basis, and 40c per lb. is allowed for extra butter- 
fat; but the extra butterfat is worth 65c per lb. and 
it would seem should be figured at its actual value 
in the butter market. 
Federation Meeting at Amsterdam 
On Saturday, April 26, a meeting of neighborhood 
farmers was held at Amsterdam, in Montgomery 
County, New York, and a unit of the New York Fed¬ 
eration of Agriculture was organized. The meeting 
was held in the assembly hall of the city high school. 
The unit starts off with nearly 400 members, and in 
addition to the dollar membership fee. pledges were 
made in voluntary contributions up to $10 each to 
help promote organization work in the State. Farm¬ 
ers of Montgomery County realize the need of an 
aggressive organization. They tell you simply but 
eloquently that the problem of production is easy, but 
when they produce the goods they are unable to find 
a profitable market for them. The purposes of the 
Federation appealed to them as a means of helping 
in the distribution problem, and they became eager 
to associate themselves in membership. 
When it came to organization, blanks were handed 
around, and each member voted for his choice, with 
no intimation of how others would vote. In this way 
members were selected for officers without influence 
from anyone, and everyone was pleased with the 
talent secured. Mr. J. A. Devendorf was elected 
president, and John I. McCumlev secretary. They 
are both live wires. The election of a State delegate 
was deferred to a later meeting. 
Discussion of the Dairy Plan 
Inclosed is a copy of a resolution passed unanimously 
at a meeting of the Albany Southern Branch of the 
Dairymen’s League, held April 17 last, in the North 
Chatham schoolhouse : 
‘Resolved, That it is the sense of the Albany Southern 
Branch of the Dairymen’s League that a general meeting 
of the dairymen of the counties near Albany be held in 
the city of Albany at an early date to discuss the pro¬ 
posed organization for the sale and manufacture of 
League milk, and that John J. Dillon and Bradley Fuller 
be invited to address the meeting.” 
The matter that we want to hear discussed and an¬ 
alyzed is the biggest proposition ever presented to the 
farmer of this or any other country. It is stated that at 
least $10,000,000 will he needed to put the proposed plan 
into operation. If it should fail and the farmers who 
contribute the $10,000,000 or more should lose their 
money, it would so shatter their confidence that I doubt 
if they could again organize successfully. 
Not only ought the plan to be fully understood and 
analyzed, but the men who are to manage the business 
should be known to be capable of doing large things in a 
large way. That they must be honest goes without say¬ 
ing. but also they must be men of extraordinary ability, 
or the business will fail. There is too much at stake to 
warrant unnecessary experimentation. There are com¬ 
paratively few men who are able to comprehend, and 
fewer yet able to manage, a $10,000,000 corporation. If 
you will arrange to discuss this matter with Mr. Fuller. 
I will undertake to get the use of Chancellor’s Ilall in 
the State Education building, a hall that will accommo¬ 
date those that would be likely to attend, at any date 
agreeable to both of you. c. w. halliday. 
President Albany Southern Branch. 
It is natural and proper that farmers should want 
to know all about a proposition of such large propor¬ 
tions before they make the venture, and it is a heal¬ 
thy symptom in the organization that men of affairs 
in its membership are beginning to demand free dis¬ 
cussion and full information. No business is closer 
to Mr. Dillon’s heart than the dairy industry, and he 
is always ready and willing to help promote its wel¬ 
fare to the best of his ability, lie has accepted the 
invitation to address the Albany meeting. 
I thank you for the $35 check. I did not write to win 
a prize, but merely to give my view as a dairyman for 
a farm organization, so that if any part of it is practical 
it may be incorporated with the thoughts of others and a 
practical plan developed from the best judgment of all. 
If this thought is in the minds of other dairymen I think 
it would be a good idea to call a meeting in some central 
location to discuss it further and give free expression to 
the best thought in the State on the needs and policies of 
farm organization. John anderson. 
