114 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



Consider the vast sums spent annually on fertilizers and ask 

 yourselves the question, would all this be so if there were not greater 

 possibilities in farming than formerlj^ ? There are men on all sides 

 of us who think that this harping on improvement is but the fancy 

 of a few enthusiasts, and that what is being done outside their town 

 or county is of no consequence to them. To such the institute has 

 no message. Sooner or later those men will learn to respect the 

 voice of warning, and may wake up too late. 



The specialization of farm work applied to dairying commenced 

 about a generation ago. The leaders of the new practice were con- 

 vinced that before fine butter could be taken from the ckurn good raw 

 material must be put into it. If the manufacture of choice butter 

 was a purely mechanical effort, limited to what takes place in the 

 churn, and to what may be done to it after the butter is removed 

 from it, then the "oleo" manufacturer will have a long innings 

 indeed. It is precisely because butter quality is governed by the 

 kind of raw material made on the farm that there is such a wide 

 and impassable gap between the real article and the substitute. 

 How wide the difference between these two products shall be is one 

 of the questions for the dair}' farmer of 1889 to settle. Most men 

 agree that "oleo" does not compete with good butter. That the 

 goods injured b}' its rivalery is the product of men who don't under- 

 stand their business. The men who show most hatred towards this 

 substance are those interested in the sale of label packed goods, or 

 hash butter. These are packed by storekeepers in the west and 

 shipped to the east to depress the butter market. In the west they 

 are washed, re-worked, salted and packed. Kept in refrigerator 

 cars and cellars in eastern cities the process of deterioration is 

 arrested till the goods reach the consumer under some fancj'^ name 

 of "Dairy," "Creamery," or whatever the fertile brain of the sales- 

 man may suggest. These goods and not "oleo" do more to depress 

 your business in the city of Boston and adjoining cities than anj'- 

 thing else and to keep it down. The creamery, and the high class 

 farm butters of New I^ngland are heavily weighted with these 

 western goods. 



The educational influence of good butter on the taste of the con- 

 sumer is the one bright ray of hope for the producer. The faster 

 we can improve quality the more rapidl}' shall we increase the 

 demand for better goods. Few but the very poor bay butter sub- 



