The Newtown bee., 1909-08-27
THE PRICE OF MILK.
A Farmer Objects to Continuing
 Business at a Loss,

To the editor of the Tri-Weekly
 Tribune.
 Sir: In the Tfi-Weekly Tribune of
 August 1 notice an article on the
 milk question, saying that there was
 grave danger of milk famine in the
 large cities of New Tor. and the
 New England states. Now, would
 respectfully ask, Is it anything to be
 wondered at? If merchant in
 New York City were doing business
 ata loss, how long do you think he
 would keep 1t up? And yet city
 people as q rule think that farmers
 ought to be getting rich right along,
 to judge by the price they have to pay for the milk. But the fact Is
 that farmers are not getting as much
 for their milk as they have in former years, when grass was more plenti- ful aud all kinds of feed were not as high as they are now by one.third
 to one-half. If the price of milk had been raised accordingly, and farmers could get enough out of their milk to pay their feed bills, there would be no shortage now of milk. But we cannot continue always to produce an article for less than 1t costs us and keep going. The Bor- den's have not paid as much in the last year for milk as they did for merly, but l have heard of no re- duction by them of their retail price in the city. They paid the farmers ir th's yi"irits less than 2.l cents quart for their June milk, and July milk will be but little better. Their price paid to farmers rarely reaches four cents in the winter months, and then the farmer has to feed so much grain that, at the present high prices of feed, it takes about all he gets for his milk and leaves him nothing for his rough fodder and his labor. Now farmers do not like to work for nothing any more than other classes of people do, anu so they are quitting buying so much feed and are going to get what they can out of their COWS and let it go at that. Another thing is that on account of two severe drouths in the last two years pastures have been nearly ruined, and the present | season has been so backward and |
 ord that such crops as the farmers rely upon to help out with the feed | supply at this time of year are not l available as early as usual, and will | not be as beneficial to the cows as they would if they could have been had earlier. But the worst of all is the fact that dealers in the city nearly always try to make out that there is always surplus, so they can keep the price down to the farm CTS. am not quite so we'll posted on | milk as I am on butter, put I have l known of butter dealers in the city ] to almost beg manufacturers here to send them some butter, and at the same time the market was quoted l as being dull. I have noticed for the last few years that city dealers have been reaching out in all directions for more territory to buy milk from. do not think there is any use for ,his, for I know that more milk could be produced in this part of the state is farmers could afford to hire nore help and raise more rough fod- Ter and buy more feed, but they can not do it under the present rules md regulations. I will venture the assertion that Deleware County could make at least one-half more milk han it does now if milk was high though so that it would pay. l hink it is time some one shed a little fight on this subject, so as to enable he producer and the consumer to get a little closer together and not lave such a wide difference in the )rice as two cents a quart to the and eight to 12 cents a Iu6rt to the consumer.-[O TO. A. Seymour, Trout Creek, Delaware County, N. Y.
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