156 AGRICULTURE OF MAINE. 



ness. Prof. Evans has discussed the milk proposition from 

 a bacterial point of view, and as my work at present does not 

 bring me in close touch with the milk problem I will not speak 

 of this. I am engaged in work relating to manufactured dairy 

 products and come in contact with about all of the manufac- 

 tured products, and it is along that line that I wish to speak 

 for a few moments. The butter produced in this country, I am 

 sorry to say, has been deteriorating in quality. It is not true, 

 perhaps, in the State of ]\Iaine, but it is true generally and I 

 believe that the people of the ^Middle West are responsible in a 

 degree, for the condition that exists today. They fought against 

 the introduction of the hand separator ; they could see no good 

 in it and they were bound it should not come into general use. 

 At the same time the number of hand separators was increasing 

 day after day and month after month. The facts are that the 

 people who put in hand separators were doing so against the 

 recommendations of their creamerymen and without any as- 

 sistance on their part ; consequently they felt that they would 

 handle that proposition as they saw fit. Now I believe that if 

 the creamery operators as a whole had handled this matter as 

 the creamery oi)erators in the State of Alaine did, had insisted 

 upon quality, had shown the farmers how to care for their 

 cream as they had been caring for their milk, and had paid for 

 quality, we would today be making a much superior butter 

 product everywhere. It has been estimated by competent au- 

 thority. I believe, that not over ten per cent of the butter that 

 reaches our big markets would be classed as extra, according to 

 New York grading, which means that ninety per cent of the 

 butter product that reaches our large markets is not of a good 

 table quality, or at least, it is not considered by competent 

 judges to be of a good table quality although much of it has 

 to be used on the table. That condition has come about largely 

 through the centralization of cream. We in the State of Maine 

 know nothing about this condition and I am glad that we do 

 not, and I hope we never will. Htit in the sparsely settled sec- 

 tions of the West, where hand separators were introduced, the 

 creameries began reaching out for cream. They did not teach 

 the dairymen to care for the product, they did not insist on fre- 

 quent deliveries, and the results were, and still exist today, that 

 much of the cream was shipped for long distances, perhaps 

 three and five hundred miles in some instances, without having 



