352 IOWA DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 



discount everywhere, and too many commission men have an idea 

 that it is an impossibility to make the highest class of butter out of 

 cream separated at the farm. The fact that poor qualities of cream 

 make poor grades of butter and lose money for the manufacturer, and 

 especially for the producer, that the reputation of the State suffers 

 by reason of second-class products, has not seemed to impress either 

 the producer or the manufacturer. So the statute was amended and 

 prosecutions followed. It remains to be seen whether this practice 

 will result in much good. 



The law is more or less unpopular. It is diflRcult to secure con- 

 viction unless the case is an extreme one. Hence it will be impossible 

 to eliminate by prosecutions any but the extreme cases of sale or 

 purchase of unclean milk or cream. There will still be plenty of milk 

 and cream sold that will not come up to the highest standard and 

 yet will not be such as is condemned by the statute. 



In the report of a year ago this department urged the grading of 

 cream for butter-making purposes, the purchase of it on grade and 

 the payment therefor in strict proportion to its real value. Early last 

 spring the centralizers agreed on a basis for grading cream and pay- 

 ment for the same substantially as follows: 



No. 1 grade consists of hand separator cream delivered at least 

 twice a week in cold weather and three times a week in warm weather, 

 free from all bad flavors and testing not less than 30 per cent. 



No. 2 grade consists of hand separator cream testing less than 30 

 per cent and delivered less frequently than required for first grade. 



Gravity and water separator cream not desired at all. 



This basis of frequency of delivery and percentage of test is not 

 the proper basis for grading of cream for quality but was a practical 

 working basis for the creamery buying through agents and shipping 

 to the central plant by rail. The proper basis for grading is, of course, 

 the quality, the cleanliness and general state of excellence of the 

 ;;roduct, yet for butter-making purposes a high-testing cream is of 

 more value than the same amount of fat in lower testing cream, and 

 the man who delivers his cream every other day is a good deal more 

 likely to take good care of it than he is if he may bring it once a 

 week or less often. Hence this attempt has resulted in bettering the 

 grade of cream received at central plants. But the competition was 

 too strenuous for some of them and they have gone back to that 

 system of paying a uniform price for any and all kinds of cream, a 

 system that practically pays a premium on poor cream, and pays 

 the man who produces good cream less than it is worth, the system 

 that resulted in the present undesirable conditions and which will 

 still further accentuate them. If the creamery operators could actu- 

 ally pay for cream upon its real value and continue to do so for a 

 year, they would have solved the problem of how to get better raw 

 material. But, of course, the experience of the last few years con- 

 vinces that they will not practice real grading of cream in any large 

 number of cases so long as present conditions exist. 



