356 IOWA DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 



anybody. If he is only a fair buttermaker the difference in quality 

 may not be more than a cent a pound on the market. If he is getting 

 the usual overrun of fourteen or fifteen per cent instead of the possible 

 legitimate overrun of twenty or more per cent he is losing a cent or more 

 a pound on his butter. The difference between 15 per cent and 20 per 

 cent overrun in the average creamery of the state amounts to $1500 a 

 year. If the buttermaker was losing this amount of money for his 

 creamery by reason of slightly poor quality, the creamery would very 

 properly dispense with his services. Why should they not do the same 

 if he is losing them this amount of money oy reason of inability to make 

 overrun. 



Suppose now this well managed creamery, of moderate size, making 

 extra butter at a cent and a half a pound. The freight and commis- 

 sion will cost two and a half cents a pound more, a total expense from 

 the farmer's wagon to the retailer's shop of four cents. Tne pound of 

 butter fat that the farmer sells will make 1.2 pounds of butter. On a 

 twenty cent market this amount of butter brings 24 cents, an amount 

 that will cover the four cents expense and enable the creamery to pay 

 New York prices for the butter fat, instead of one, two or three cents 

 under the market. At this rate the local creamery can pay more for 

 butter fat that any central creamery now does pay or can pay. And if 

 this well managed creamery, of proper size, operated by a competent 

 buttermaker, gets a premium on the butter as nearly every creamery does 

 get nowadays, of one cent or a cent and a half, they have still further 

 margin on the central plant, and can withstand not only fair and reason- 

 able competition but unfair and unreasonable competition. 



The centralizer hustles for business for the reason that a small busi- 

 ness is no more profitable to him than it is to any other creamery 

 operator. Why should not the local creamery manager do the same 

 The centralizer takes everything that is offered to him. Why should 

 not you with some exceptions do the same. I was in a town last week 

 which has a successful creamery, yet every day in the week 1500 pounds 

 of cream is shipped out of that town, not because by so doing it brings 

 a higher price, for it does not but because the local creamery absolutely 

 refuses to take it at any price. If the local plant would take this 

 second grade cream, make it into second grade butter, it could then pay 

 more for it than the central creamery does, and by this increase of busi- 

 ness still further reduce their manufacturing expense. They don't have 

 to take this poor cream, they are making enough butter now so that they 

 pay more than New York prices for fat. But there is many a creamery 

 that must have an increase of business such as this would be or go out of 

 business. 



The certralizers get together and talk over their business and try 

 to get rid of competition that will do their business harm. Is there 

 any reason why the local creameries should not do the same thing? This 

 is an age of combinations and it is only by combining forces that the 

 weaker concerns in any line of business are able to continue. 



I am more and more convinced of the value of the local organization 

 of buttermakers. They ought to be extended to cover the business of 



