The Bridgeport evening farmer. [volume] (Bridgeport, Conn.) 1866-1917, 1913-11-15

20 per cent. in quantity. Add the
difference in the wholesale price of
pork, and it will appear that we are
paying for that particular bacon at
least twice as much as we did pay for
it not long ago; and the while increase
is absolutely unJustihed-and unjus-
tihab1e.
would not have the milk produc-
ers adopt such tactics, but they might
take measures to get lot more mon
ey out of their product, and at the
same time give their customers great
er satisfaction. I do not think that
there is anything to brag about con-
nected with the New England milk
business as it is now conducted, ex-
cept in spots. The number Of cows
has steadily decreased, and it is be-
coming almost impossible for the con-
sumers in cities to get fresh butter
or good cheese, not to mention good
milk. Even the small merchants right
in the heart of good milk country are
selling some factory butter, made in
the west e'sprocessed," and shipped to
New England for the use of people
who live in the midst of the best graz
ing land in the country that can be
bought for half what the land where
the factory butter is made costs.
This milk and butter and cheese
question is one of the most curious,
and inexplicable, connected, with the
development of the New England
farm lands 1t is a fact that all the
milk used in Boston might be pro-
duced within fifty miles of that city.
There is plenty of land, and 1t can be
bought for about half its value. There
Is good transportation to the city.
There is that great and growing mar
ket It is easy to raise milk without
great areas of pasture land. The best
milk producers know that they can
make more money raising milk If they
do not pasture their COWS at all. 1t
is perfectly feasible to keep large
numbers of cows without creating the
slightest nuisance. 1t Is done, by
many men who know how. There are
big milk farms or milk plants, with
in less than twenty miles of Boston,
where men engaged in other business
in the city raise milk in large quanti-
ties, and make money doing it.
And vet the contractors who supply
Boston and vicinity with milk have
to ship it many niles-in some in
stances 200 or even 500 miles-and
have as well to accept milk of infer
Tor quality raised under undesirable
conditions. Much might be said about
the quantity of milk raised in New
ENGLAND, but as long as that region
does not raise the Eni1k~it consumes,
and might do SO without much effort,
it does not appear that it has very
much to feel proud of.
Just to show that the contention
made that milk raising in New Eng
land may be profitable: There is a
man in Midd1esex county, Mass, who
came from Sweden FL years ago,
wearing wooden shoes. He went to
work as a common farm hand. Now
he has fine farm of SO acres, keeps
so COWS and four horses. He raises
all their feed. When he took the
farm it was barely keeping three cows
and one horse. He sells from $500
to $1,000 worth of hay, besides, every
year How does he do it? BY US
ing his brains-nothing else. His
farm is worth more than $4,000.
Twenty years ago Worcester county
Mass, man took his fathers farm of
40 acres, with debt Of 5000 along
with it, He paid the debt, bought on
about 500 acres more, and has be-
come wealthy, for a farmer. He has
not made all his money selling milk
to the Boston contractors. He says
he cannot make money that way
that all he gets out of it is the ma
nure to enrich his land. But he has
always raised a lot of milk, and now
has about one COW for every acre he
owns His head work enables him to