Vermont Dairymen's Association. 75 



in it ; and they pay less than do cooperative creameries unless com- 

 petition compels them to do otherwise. A man has a few dollars, 

 perhaps a hundred or two hundred in a cooperative creamery ; 

 he doesn't care much whether he ever gets it back or not. A 

 very large amount of money is invested by a lesser number of 

 individuals in a proprietary creamery and they are going to ask 

 more for the work of butter making unless competition prevents 

 it. Now with us in Randolph, our butter production has prob- 

 ably doubled in eight years. Before our cooperative creamery 

 started there was a proprietary creamery there. It gave its 

 patrons average butter quotations less four cents a pound for 

 making. That was all right ; it was the trade. Before we built 

 our creamery, we asked that it be made for three cents and were 

 told that it could not possibly be done for that sum. Yet, since 

 we built we have paid probably on the average the highest quo- 

 tations of the Boston Chamber of Commerce, and have charged 

 only two cents for making; and the proprietary creamery has 

 done about the same thing. Sometimes we vary a little, but that 

 is just about the basis. We have made 2,500,000 pounds of 

 butter at two cents per pound. If they have made the same 

 amount the local farmers have been saved from fifty to one hun- 

 dred thousand dollars. You would not think that a little com- 

 munity could stand any such draiu;^ but Vermont can stand most 

 anything and still be on top. 



I have lived to be fifty years of age. I once thought Ver- 

 mont was the poorest State in the Union ; now, I think it is the 

 best. We have stood the drain of some of our best boys and 

 girls and the drain of thousands of dollars sent yearly to the 

 West and other places never to come back ; and still we are doing 

 well and making money as our savings banks show. And if 

 everyone of us would be as loyal to our State as is our present 

 Governor, our farms would increase twenty-five per cent in value 

 in a minute. Stick to your cooperative creameries. You may 

 not like the manager or the buttermaker. Ascertain if you 

 haven't some little personal prejudice against him; if not prob- 

 ably when the time comes round at the annual meeting, you 

 easily will get him removed. The cooperative creameries in my 

 opinion have been the salvation of the State, and of the farmers 

 and we cannot afford to give them up. The milk routes are 

 extending, yet I believe that it will be for our interests always to 

 keep our cooperative creameries ready to run if they are closed 

 up for this reason. 



(Applause.) 



