154 AGRICULTURE OF MAINE, 



business. Do not condemn the creamery man simply because a 

 mistake has been made. Farmers are just as Hable to make mis- 

 takes as creamery men. On the other hand, creamery men are 

 just as Hable to make mistakes as farmers, because we have a 

 great many figures to make and carry out in the course of a 

 month's business. There is one thing that is of vital importance 

 in the carrying out of a correct system in any business, and that 

 is to be careful to protect the interests of all concerned. Before 

 we started in business we tried to put two and two together to 

 make four, in a complete system of carrying on our business. 

 Before going into the creamery business I was on the road and 

 had an opportunity to call on the majority of the creameries in 

 New England, and had a pretty good opportunity to investigate 

 the different systems that were being used at those creameries * 

 and when I went into business at Pittsfield in a small way, with 

 one plant and a small number of patrons, we introduced a sys- 

 tem there and have carried it out as far as we could, making 

 changes and improvements from time to time, and I think we 

 have as satisfied a lot of patrons at our creamery today as there 

 are at almost any creamery. We have had our troubles, the same 

 as others, but we are always willing to give time and attention 

 to all complaints entered. No matter how far distant the patron 

 is, we try to go to him personally if we can, and if not, we take 

 up the matter by correspondence. But farmers dislike to write 

 letters. They have a complaint to make, and instead of taking it 

 up with headquarters they will do so through their cream col- 

 lectors. The cream collector is not a natural correspondent, and 

 the matter goes unattended to for two or three weeks, until it 

 gets around to headquarters. In that time the farmer has be- 

 come disgruntled and dissatisfied and condemns the whole s\'s- 

 tem from start to finish, which is a' mistake. 



I think the introduction of hand separators and new systems 

 of manufacturing butter, and the development of the markets,, 

 make the creamery question more complicated. Originally cream 

 was bought by the space, and a space of cream was supposed 

 to make so much butterfat. Of course the quality of the cream 

 varied, and consequently the results obtained varied, and if one 

 farmer thought he had just as good cows as another, and one 

 of those neighbors got a better return than the other in 

 a month's payment, there was cause for controversy. They 



