BUTTER. 



207 



The next factory established was at Easthampton, Mass. That 

 started in October, 1881. Its average has since been o,ir>0 inches 

 of cream and over 5,000 pounds of butter per month. Its selling 

 price during 1882 has averaged 3') cents, or the same as the verv 

 highest quotations of the New York nuu-ket for the bes(^ western 

 creamerv. This factory has labored under the disadvantage of 

 getting too little cream for its running capacit}', and the cost of 

 making has reached nearly six cents per pound. Nevertheless, the 

 patrons have, on the average, had larger incomes from the same 

 number of cows than ever before, and feel such a relief at home 

 that nothing would induce them to return to the old way of private 

 dairying. 



At Granby, Conn., a Fairlarab factory was started last June, and 

 it has proved very successful. Its capital is $4,000, and it has 

 received the cream from nearly 400 cows. In six months it made 

 44,228 pounds of butter at a total cost of only four cents a pound, 

 and sold it at 28 to 42 cents a pound. Last October the factory 

 dividend to the cow owners was at the rate of 37 cents net per 

 pound for their butter — or, rather, 19 cents per quart for their 

 cream, as it stood on the milk at their own farms. 



Other examples of a like nature might be given of what has 

 actually resulted here in New England from the adoption of the 

 Fairlamb svstem in butter-making neighborhoods. I have selected 

 these three because personally instrumental in starting them and 

 familiar with their operations. In every case the butter made at 

 these factories was from the first graded in the market as equal to 

 western creamery, and sold accordingh*. The result was an in- 

 creased price averaging at least five cents per pound during the 

 3'ear more than the butter from the same farms would ha\'c sold for 

 as dairy butter in home-made lots. This gain of five cents a pound 

 was enough during the starting year, and more than enough after- 

 wards, to pay all the expenses of the business, including interest on 

 the investment at the factor}', and the necessary outlav at the farms 

 for cans and tanks. The gain, therefore, if it be only the relief at 

 home, is enough to justify change. 



In many cases, however, the actual results, after the system lias 

 become well established, show still greater gains. I have authority, 

 which cannot be disputed, for these statements : 



1. The quality of the whole buttei' product of a communit}', made 

 on the cream-gathering plan, at a factory, has averaged as high for 



