No. 6. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 451 



do the milking-, manage the milk, chnrn the butter and make it in 

 nice rolls, then, I am sorry to record, in many cases, her lord of 

 creation would do the rest — that is, pocket the money. This refers 

 especially to the "l*eniisylvania Dutch,'' more genteelly called Tenn- 

 sylvania Germans. 



But during the last decade the old meandering '"huckster" passed 

 out of existence, and nearly all of the farmers' milk goes to thi 

 separator creamery. The good woman of the house needs do no more 

 now than the milking, and in some cases she rebells against that and 

 I hope she will continue to do so. 



This rovolution in dairying on the farm has been all along for the 

 better; that is, we have a better product, we have less w^ork and cost 

 of making and marketing is reduced, which means that we now get a 

 dollar for much less energy expended than farming, only formerly 

 we men folks applied more of the said energy by proxy. 



The creamery system, as we have it at present, in many of the most 

 thickly settled dairy counties, i® far from perfect; yes, very far. But 

 for districts far from market, it is certainly a great improvement on 

 former methods. In. districts sparsely populated, or within reach of 

 mining or manufacturing towns or any other good market, the farm- 

 ers still continue to make and market their own butter, and as I am 

 included in that number, I will address the rest of my remarks to 

 that class. 



I am sorry to say that a rather large per cent, of butter made by 

 the farmers is not very good and some is abnominably bad, but I 

 would also incidentally say the same holds true about creamery but- 

 ter, of course, the creamery men blame the farmer, but I happen to 

 know some cases where the butter maker did not even know the dif- 

 ference between good and bad butter. I do hope our Agricultural 

 College Avill continue to turn out men fitted to take charge of our 

 creameries, as not i^ few are at it now who know about as much of 

 butter-making as a mule does of gravitation, and the farmer must suf- 

 fer the consequences. 



But to the farmers as butter makers. 



I marketed butter for a number of years and visited a number of 

 markets where farmers market their butter, and I have yet the first 

 case to find where A No. 1 butter was not in big demand at good 

 prices, while poor butter was a drag and drug on the market, and had 

 to be sold for a mere pittance in many cases. I so often hear the 

 remark, if farmers all would adopt these better methods, your good 

 prices would soon be a thing of the past. I can hardly conceive such 

 a calamit}', and I prefer not to cross the bridge until I get to it. But 

 in the case of butter, I am quite sure if all would make good butter 

 our best prices would be better and we all would get those pri«es. 



