a 



DAIRY AND SEED IMPROVEMENT MEETINGS. I97 



Whether this is due to better methods of manufacture, to 

 distribution of knowledge or to the keeping of better cows, is 

 a matter worthy of consideration. 



I find that the production of butter in the State of Maine, 

 per cow. in ten-year periods, is as follows : 



1850 69.21 lbs. per cow 



i860 79-33 



1870 83.55 



1880 93-53 



1890 108.08 



1900 118.87 



1910 98-23 



and that the number of cows in Maine has increased from 

 133.556 in 1850 to 156,819 in 1910. 



The product, oleomargarine, was first conceived and brought 

 forth in purity and with good intentions, with the beneficent 

 thought that it would be a good product in time of need, when 

 butter would be so scarce that none but the well-to-do could 

 afiford it. But when its manufacture reached the land of 

 Yankeedom, the spirit of predatory commercialism soon seized 

 upon it, and it masqueraded in the guise of a pretender. It 

 looked like butter, smelled like butter, tasted like butter, and in 

 many cases was sold as and for butter by the retailer, and 

 served as such in many cases in places of public entertainment. 

 For a time is was the shibboleth of its sponsors, that it was 

 such a clever imitation that good butter judges were deceived 

 into eating it and believing it to be butter. As time went on, 

 it was rapidly usurping the place of butter fraudulently, and, 

 as in all such movements, there was a reaction in which liberty- 

 loving, truth-telling, honest-dealing people demanded remedial 

 legislation. This resulted in the passage in 1886 of a national 

 law taxing oleomargarine two cents per pound in order to 

 obtain surveillance. 



This statute, however, did not do away with the fraud, 

 which had become practically the advance agent and boon com- 

 panion of this product. 



The statute, however, remained unchanged until 1902, when 

 Congress amended it by providing a taxation on oleomargarine, 

 as follows : That oleomargarine should be taxed ten cents per 



