The pooling system of purchasing milk, now universally practiced at separator creameries, is defensible only on grounds of expediency, as a makeshift to be endured only until a better system shall be developed. It makes no pretense to justice in its treatment of the individual patron, it places a premium on quantity rather than and even at expense of quality, it drives patrons possessing rich-milk dairy herds and those who feed liberally and intelligently into private dairying, it tempts the short-sighted and cunning into dishonest practices, and tends in every way to demoralize the creamery industry.

The creamery proprietor is not, however, the chief sufferer. He can always save himself, and continue to profit, by lowering the price of milk to correspond with the average quality of all received, as shown by the butter produced. But the farmer who, producing milk of superior quality from a herd which has cost much time and money to bring together, is obliged to pool with those producing inferior- milk, from scrub herds and poor feed,— not to mention the possibility of home-skimming or watering,— he, by long odds, is the greatest sufferer.