740 BOARD OF AGRICFLTURE. 



INDIANA CREAMERY CONDITIONS 



II. N. SLATER, rURDUE UNIVERSITY. 



Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen— I do not want you to take this 

 to heart too unicb, and at the same time I want you to appreciate the situ- 

 ation. I went out tliis fall for the purpose of finding out what influence 

 conditions will have, and I shall give them to you just as I believe them, 

 and let it hit where it will. 



We have many good cows in the State of Indiana, more, in fact, than 

 are in many other creamery districts. We have sm^U farms in Indiana, 

 and in most instances there are three or four cows on the farm. The 

 farmer consumes at least one-half of the milk produced by those cows, 

 and that leaves one or two cows to produce butter for market. In a case 

 like that it means that a farmer can hardly afford to harness up aud drive 

 to a creamery in order to deliver that small amount of milk, and for that 

 reason I advocate pretty strongly for the State of Indiana the hand 

 separators. Milk is scarce and hard to get together. There is a lack of 

 interest and education among the farmers in a dairy way. The jteople 

 that attend these conventions are not the ones which we would like 

 to talk to along these lines. There are hundreds of thousands of them 

 that were never in a dairy convention, and we can not get them in, and 

 they are the ones which we would like to talk to. We can not reach 

 them. Buttermakers and managers of creameries do not do their part. 

 I knoAv buttermakers in this State that are not acquainted with their 

 pati-ons— they Avould not know them if they should meet them face to face 

 in the road. As I told you this morning the best thing for these conditions 

 is opposition. I know, because I have been in opposition. If this man 

 here who owns a creamery does not do the right thing the patrons will 

 not go to him. but will go to the man a mile farther on, and he knows 

 he has got to do the right thing. He has got to pay as much for their 

 butter fat as the others are paying. This is true when the creameries 

 are close together, but when they are 25 or 30 miles apart it is differ- 

 ent. Then they are not acquainted with one another. These convention."^ 

 are good things, because if they attend the conventions they get acquainted 

 with each other, and then they get to meeting in their own counties. In 

 Martina and Miami counties, Minnesota, they meet at least once or twice 

 a month, and 20 or ?,0 buttermakers get together and discuss subjects that 

 are of interest to them. They get (lie assistance of each other and also of 

 Prof. Heacker. It is not enough to call tlie people together only once a 

 year. If they can not do better than that it is better than not at all, but 

 it is not enough. There is ninney in tream and milk. There are lots of 



