Bulletin 135. /Vlay, 1Q04^. 



Ontario Agricultural College and Experimental Farm 



*- - - . ^ z — . ■ — ■ ""^ 



THE CREAM-GATHERING CREAMERY. 



By H. H. Dean, B.S.A., Professor of Dairy Husbandry, and J. A. McFeeters. 



Instructor in Dairy School, O.A.C. 



The manufacture of butter on the farms of Ontario is carried on \n 

 many cases under discouraging circumstances. Labor is becoming more 

 difficult to secure each year, and especially the kind of labor required to make 

 good butter. Not only is the labor problem a serious one. but the fact that 

 many farms lack suitable utensils and a suitable place in which to set the 

 milk and make butter, causes a very inferior quality to be produced. Then, 

 again, this ibutter is often " traded out " for dry goods and groceries, where 

 no discrimination in price is made between good and bad batter. This sys- 

 tem does not encourage the good buttermaker, but places a premium on care- 

 lessness and inferior butter. In a discriminating market the diflference in 

 price bcnween mferior dairy butter and the best creamery butter is from 

 five to ten cents per pound. The difiference is sufficient to pay the cost of 

 manufacturing at the creamery, and leave a good margin of profit to the 

 farmer. Besdde'S this, the work on the farm is lessened very much b"y having 

 the butter made in a creamery. If the persons producing " ten-cent butter " 

 were able to produce it so cheaply that they make a profit at this price, 



the situation would not be so bad. However, when we consider that the 

 average food-cost of one pound of butter is probably about ten cents, +hc 

 profit on such butter is very small, if, indeed, it is not produced at a loss. 

 Not only does the farmer lose money through inferior dairy buttter, but the 

 merchant, the dealer, and the reputation of Canadian butter, all sustain a 

 loss. The remedy for this in the majority of cases, is the adoption of the 



creamery or co-operative plan of buttermaking. 



Ceeam-gathering and Whole Milk Creameries. 



Many districts, owing to the small cow population scattered ovei * . . 

 siderable extent of territory, are unsuitable for delivering the whole milk 

 at the creamery. The cost of hauling the milk from the farm to the creamery 

 and the skim-milk back to the farm is altogether too great, hence the plan of 

 creaming the milk on the farm, by setting it in cans or pans, or by means of a 

 cream separator, and sending only the cream to the creamery, is being more 

 generally adopted; While the average quality of the butter is not so good 

 under this system, the advantages outweigh the disadvantages in many cases. 

 The cream-gathering creamery is a great improvement over the plan of mak- 

 ing butter under the conditions! which prevail on the average farm. There 

 are .farm dairies which turn out a quality of butter equal to the best creamer}', 

 but they are the exception rather than the rule. 



The Cows. 



The dairyman satisfied with anything short of the best cows obtain- 

 able may not be considered progressive. If the best native or grade cows 



