herds as
to make the locality a barren dairy region. Notwithstanding the splendid
achievements of the dairy industry it is safe to say that it may not be
profitable in any and every locality. Given the soil, the climate, the
water, the people intelligent and disposed toward the exacting duties of
this business, there are still many questions to be considered and many
mistakes to be avoided.

It has been a pet idea in this country that competition is the
corrective of all industrial evils. Competition without doubt holds an
important place among the industrial forces, but may be carried so far
as to defeat the very objects it is adapted to subserve, when
intelligently encouraged. Carried to the extent of employing two persons
or more to do the work of one, of absorbing capital without the full
employment of it, it becomes destructive and expensive. We find, for
instance, in many towns, a large number of commercial establishments
doing business at an immense profit on single transactions, but the
transactions are so few and so divided up among struggling competitors,
that neither secures a profitable, nor even a respectable, business.
With choice cuts of meat from twelve to eighteen cents a pound and
butcher's stock at three and four cents, we often see butcher shops
multiply, but the price of meat usually remains the same. Indeed, the
very increase of middle man establishments beyond the employment of
these to their full capacity, and the consequent full utilization of the
capital and labor employed, is a sure loss to somebody, and if it does
not all go to the producer it is almost always shared by him.

One of the greatest burdens which the creamery business has to carry
to-day is the excessive number of its creameries beyond legitimate
demands. The co-operative idea, so far as it enters into this business,
implies the most profitable use possible of the resources employed in it
both of patron and creamery owner, and a fair and equitable distribution
of the profits. Said a large creamery owner to me recently, "I find
the comparative value of my butter steadily decreasing from year to
year. I have the same territory, the same butter-makers, the same
patrons, substantially, but my butter is not up in quality and price as
it used to be. I ascribe it to the excessive competition prevailing in
it, i.e., it is one of its results. I have lost my influence over
patrons in securing the best quality of cream. If I make any crit