American Agriculturist 
THE FARM PAPER THAT PRINTS THE FARM NEWS 
“Agriculture is the Most Healthful, Most Useful and Most Noble Employment of Man.”— Washington 
Reg. U. S. Pat. Off. Established 1842 
Volume 113 For the Week Ending March 29, 1924 Number 13 
End of New England Price ar in Sight 
Big Milk Meeting at Bellows Falls Plans General Marketing Agency 
By GEORGE HERBERT 
T HE “price war” in the New England 
milk industry, still taking heavy toll, of 
dairymen, led on March 13 to an im¬ 
portant meeting at Bellows Falls, Vt., 
looking toward the union of all the New England 
producers in a central cooperative sales agency. 
As General-Manager Bradford of the famous 
Turner Center System said, in advocating the 
project, New England is a natural milk market 
“island,” surrounded by the Canadian tariff, the 
Atlantic, and the milk basin of New York. Each 
of its larger cities has its own fluid marketing 
cooperative, bargaining with its own city retailers. 
The largest is the New England Milk 
Producers’ Association, the well- 
known “Nempa,” selling in Boston. 
Most of the others work harmoniously 
with the Nempa, preparatory to the 
ultimate consolidation believed to be 
inevitable. Milk is sold monthly in 
two classes, fluid and “surplus,” the 
price of the latter being based on 
Boston creamery extra butter. The 
fluid price has been much higher than 
that of surplus, running at times to 
double the figure. 
Where no large near-by city mar¬ 
kets exist, and especially in northern 
Vermont, there has grown up also a 
number of local cooperative cream¬ 
eries, and the “price war” has been 
in part due to the natural crowding of 
these into the Boston market, seeking 
the higher fluid price. Boston being 
already flushed with Nempa milk, 
their readiest recourse, in order to 
wedge in, has been to cut the Nempa 
price. Sometimes this has been open; 
sometimes hidden behind rebates, 
bonuses and similar devices. 
These producers have been aided 
by city retailers who, dealing mainly 
in fluid, offer to take a creamery’s en¬ 
tire output at one “flat price,” which 
cuts the Nempa fluid price, but which 
still nets the creamery a greater return 
than Nempa yields, pulled down as Nempa is by 
the cost of its lower-priced surplus; the situation 
being analogous to that created by the Non- 
Pool” combination in New York. 
The climax came in the aggressive effort of the 
John T. Connor Co., which runs a system of 400 
chain stores in Boston, to build up a heavy cash 
and carry milk trade at a reduced price. This 
company allied itself with the Bellows Falls 
Cooperative Creamery, Inc., by buying in heavily 
and building up the plant, creating a situation 
which finally impelled Nempa itself to take a hand, 
in defense of its own markets, the net result being 
a rapid drop in prices, a cent a quart a month for 
the last two months, amid a crescendo chorus of 
alarm from the milk producers. T he call for the 
meeting was made by Mr. Glenn C. Sevey. editor 
of the New England Homestead , in an effort to 
get everybody together to stem the disastrous tide. 
The call included everybody who might want 
to “kick” or help, cooperative milk marketing 
and farmers’ city retailing associations, coopera¬ 
tive creameries (especially Bellows Falls), State 
dairy associations and commissioners of agricul¬ 
ture, farm bureau officials and marketing experts 
from agricultural colleges. The meeting was 
wisely staged at Bellows Falls, the storm center, 
and located in Vermont, whose creameries are 
perhaps most acutely affected by the “war.” The 
attendance was large—200 to 300—and every¬ 
body was given the floor who had a complaint or a 
suggestion to make. The spirit of fair play, under 
Chairman Sevey, who had called the meeting, was 
noteworthy, and undoubtedly had a powerful 
effect in securing the favorable outcome. 
President Chas. F. Adams, of the Connor chain 
system, led the “independent” opposition. The 
primary trouble, he said, was over-production, 
which he is trying to cure by boosting consumption 
through a 4-cent per quart cut to cash and carry 
customers, below house to house delivery. The 
city retailers were willing to grant him 3 cents; 
4 cents, they said, was unfair, and they fought 
him. (Some of them by selling house to house at 
10 cents, his cash and carry price; he showed an 
advertisement in proof.) Thus he was the victim 
of price cutting, not its originator. He tried to 
hold a 12-cent price but his surplus rose steadily, 
and he had to drop to stop it. Nempa had played 
with the retailers and refused to sell Bellows Falls 
milk. If they continued to fight his 4-cent mar¬ 
gin, he would invest another $100,000, and carry 
the war into Africa with a house to house delivery 
of his own. “We want that (4-cent) spread,” he 
said, “and we are going to have it.” 
Mr. Adams’s tone was fight throughout, ending 
in fact with a little Dempsey-Carpentier tale, with 
the unmistakable inference (although he did not 
say it), that his organization was the dairy 
Dempsey of the “price war,” with a knockout fist 
for Nempa or whoever invaded chain store 
“rights.” It is presented at length because it is a 
shining example of how not to talk in a coopera¬ 
tive meeting. 
Mr. Adams was the only speaker who took that 
vein. The other “independents,” while standing 
on their rights, expressed their belief that “cooper¬ 
ators should cooperate.” There was remarkably 
little opposition; the evident feeling was that the 
crisis called for united action, not for fight. 
Geo. R. Little, the president of the Nempa, ex¬ 
plained the difficulty of maintaining, a living re¬ 
turn to dairymen, with butter prices set for the 
surplus by trainload competition from the Middle 
West. Nempa has been blamed for 
drowning out the Boston market by 
setting fluid prices too high; but 
advanced fluid prices are all that 
can save the dairyman. Nempa 
tries to set fluid at the highest 
notch permitted by supply and de¬ 
mand; but if an over-supply came in 
due to bonuses, rebates and other cut 
prices by creameries and “flat rate” 
retailers, a living level could not be 
held; Nempa had to protect its mem¬ 
bers by cutting in turn. He proposed 
a cooperative central marketing 
agency, New England wide, with 
quality and distance the only “dif¬ 
ferentials.” 
State Commissioner Gilbert of 
Massachusetts pointed out how such 
an agency could hold single disturb¬ 
ing distributors in check, and stop 
chain store troubles by granting a fair 
margin, with uniform prices for each 
service. 
Manager Bradford of Turner Cen¬ 
ter spoke for the proposed plan, and 
pointed out the danger of setting 
fluid prices too high, thus leading 
inevitably to cut prices by distant 
producers seeking their share. 
Roy D. Hunter, ex-President of the 
Eastern States Farmers’ Exchange, 
made important suggestions. He 
showed that over-production, with New England 
buying millions of Western butter, is a myth. We 
need to go deeper. Nempa, which has kept out 
of retailing, must now consider it. The retailer 
must become the agent of the farmer, selling at 
prices the farmer sets; just as many manufactured 
articles retail at prices the maker sets. A just 
margin between delivery and cash and carry milk 
could and would be maintained. 
Manager Clifford Hough of the Connecticut 
Milk Producers’ Association said it must not be 
judged by its present controversial stage. His own 
cooperative also works under a pool, prosperously, 
harmoniously, and with increasing efficiency, fair 
play bringing fair play, with sales at uniform 
prices. But he hoped a New England pool would 
not be started till 75 per cent, of producers signed 
up. G. M. Baldwin, a Vermont “dirt farmer,” 
speaking for farmers, was a real force in putting 
the idea across, by his vigorous, practical and fair- 
minded suggestions, and his plea for energetic and 
immediate action. There were many other impor¬ 
tant speakers, representing many notable farmer 
organizations, all but one or two advancing the 
(Continued on page 3H5) 
Cooperative Organizations Should Cooperate 
Y OU will not want to miss the article on this page 
about the New England milk war and the meeting 
which was called at Bellows Falls, Vermont, to settle it. 
Mr. Herbert made a special trip to Bellows Falls for 
American Agriculturist to attend this big get-together 
meeting of New England dairymen because, as every 
farmer knows, we have a very similar problem in the New 
York territory. A milk price war has been in progress 
in the New York market for months, that has cost 
farmers millions of dollars. 
i The £4ew England dairymen made plans at the Bellows 
Falls meeting to do in New England just what AMERICAN 
AGRICULTURIST has advocated for months should be done 
in our own territory. Our dairymen are well organized 
in their organizations, but up to now there has been no 
cooperation among the organizations themselves. Our 
dairymen in this territory have learned to cooperate; their 
organizations have not. So long as they continue to fight 
among themselves, farmers will receive ruinous prices 
for their milk.— THE EDITORS. 
