THE DAIRY FARMER AND CREAMERIES. 117 



Most of you can remember that but a few jears ago butter was 

 not worth as much in many parts of the country as it is to-day. 

 Why is this? What has happened to produce so marked a change in 

 all the butter markets of the country, and not alone in this land but 

 all over the world ? Less than thirty years ago we began to feel the 

 effects of what we call modern competition, and with this excessive 

 rivalry there came a change in the domestic habits of the people. 

 Those who had consumed much grass meat reduced their consumption 

 of coarse fats and cultivated their tastes for butter and other dairy 

 products. Now we use more milk, cheese, and butter, and the 

 descrimination of the consumer is not wholly confined to the finer 

 shades of quality in cheese and butter, but is applied to milk also. Go 

 into the homes of people in comfortable circumstances, or to the first 

 and second class hotels and we find a qualit}^ of milk and cream much 

 higher than that formerly met with. In some cities, and especially 

 is this true of New York, Boston, Philadelphia and Chicago, besides 

 a number of smaller cities, and Jersey and Guernsey milk and cream 

 are met with under their own names because of the larger proportion 

 of fat they contain, and for their deeper and richer tints of color. 

 This taste in the selection of food although largely stimulated by 

 the general cultivation of the arts of life the world over has been 

 greatly stimulated by the special work of the dairy colleges and 

 institutes all over the world. In the United States the people in 

 suburban residences who kept family cows have had the greatest 

 share in the work. Twent}' 3-ear8 ago the few New Englanders who 

 made good butter had a large share in moulding the taste, and 

 developing our present market for good butter. One of the most 

 perplexing questions you can present to a good dairyman, or iiisti- 

 tute worker in the present day is to ask him when the market limit 

 will be reached. That there is a limit somewhere nobody doubts, 

 and that it may reach us some day no one will dispute but when, 

 and how no one can tell, for the best of all reasons that no one can 

 know. The private dairyman who makes the highest priced goods, 

 the creamer}' man who commands the best markets are the most 

 ready to impart information to assist others because they know there 

 is no danger of overlading the market with high-class goods. 



What is the relation of the farmer to this business, and how can 

 he obtain the largest share of income from it? What is its effect on 

 the agriculture of a state, and how does it effect the farmers out- 

 side the circle ot dairymen ? Why may not the interest of the farm- 



