Farming, as stated above, is carried on with a view to the production of milk for the city market. It is a laborious and exacting occupation. The dairy cow, generally of the Holstein stock, or with a strain of Holstein in her blood, is the most common variety; though the grass of the Hill is so good that very rich milk is produced by "red cow, just plain farmer's cow," as the local description runs; and the demands of the middlemen have brought in some Jersey cattle, which are desired, because of the greater proportion of cream they produce. The largest profit from the "making of milk" is secured by those farmers who keep as many cows as can be fed from the land owned by them. But the more ambitious farmers rent land, and in a few cases on a small farm keep so many cattle that they have to buy even hay and corn. It is necessary for the farmer, in order to meet the demands of the city market, to feed his cattle on grains not raised on the Hill. One hundred years ago the lands of the Hill were planted in wheat, rye, corn and other grains, but to-day the farmers buy all grains, except corn, of which an increasing quantity is being raised, and oats, of which they do not raise enough for the use of their horses. There are no silos used on the Hill, the city milkmen having a standing objection to the milk of cows fed on ensilage.
The labor problem created by the milk business is an acute one. One man can milk not more than twenty cows, and he is a stout farm-hand who can daily milk more than twelve or fifteen. As a farmer must keep between twenty and forty cows to do justice to his acreage, on the average Hill farm, there must be at least two men, and often there must be five or six men employed on the farm. To secure this number of capable men, to keep them, and to pay them are hard problems. Their wages have risen in the past twelve years, from fourteen dollars a month and board to twenty-three dollars and board; or for a married man, who has house rent, wood, and time to cut it, garden and time to tend it, and a quart of milk a day, the wages have risen from twenty-eight to thirty-five dollars a month.
These men are recruited from a class born in the country, and of a drifting, nomadic spirit; and from the city, the latter a sinister, dangerous element, whom the farmers fear and suspect. On a large farm, with five men in employ, the farmer may expect to replace one man each month; and to replace his whole force at least once a year. So changeable are the minds of this class of laborers.
Those who are married are somewhat more stable; but of the others it is asserted by the farmers that out of their wages they save nothing.
There has been a rise in the price secured by the farmers for their milk in the past ten years, but it has been only for limited periods. The variation was from 1.9 cents and 2 cents, the price in 1895-98, to 3 cents, the price paid in the winter of 1907. In the summer the price is always lower. The farmers have no control over the price paid them for milk, nor have they control over the prices to be paid for labor, though of course in this matter, there is room for a certain skill in bargaining and for the lowering of the total wages paid on the farm through the skillful employment of the cheaper kinds of hands.
There is also a difference in the price paid for milk by "the Milk Factory," a plant established at the railway in the past ten years, in each dairy-town. This establishment takes milk from the poorer dairies under conditions less exacting than are laid down by some buyers, and in consequence pays a price correspondingly lower than the market rates for milk and the higher prices secured by the better farmers.
One energetic farmer, who has in the past five years had large farms to manage, on hire, or on shares, has prepared milk for hospital use in the city, meeting the exactions of inspection, and the prescribed care of stables, animals, workmen and receptacles in a way intolerable to the average farmer. He receives in return a price twenty per cent above the market rate.
The effect of the above conditions is seen in the fact that in the twelve years under study nine owners of large farms have "given up the milk business," have sold their cows, or keeping them have made butter and fatted calves for market. The profits to be made in dairy-farming are so small, unless the farmer conduct his dairy in an exceptional manner, or on a very large scale, that the average man on the Hill cannot continue it. Indeed, the average farmer on the Hill is unable through lack of vitality or incapacity for application, to conduct any business, successfully, against competition. The state of mind of such men, in the worst cases, is illustrated by the remark of one of them who approached a successful dairyman, saying: "I am going to cease to make milk for the city market, and I thought I would come to you and find out something about the way to make butter—not the best butter, such as you make, but a sort of second-class butter."