450 IOWA DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 



the prices they had paid for butter fat for the first ten months 

 of 1904. A comparison with New York prices for butter 

 showed that their net prices for deHvery to the creamery was 

 from onfe-half to one and a quarter cents under New York 

 prices. In order to compare with the present system, it is 

 necessary to remember that for the first ten months of 1904 

 the centralizer operated upon the plan of buying^ cream from 

 the individual shipper and that the shipper paid the freight 

 directly, so that his net return was from one and a half to 

 two and a quarter cents under New York. During the past 

 summer, under the agency system, ruling prices have been al- 

 ways two cents under New York, nearly always three cents 

 under New York, and sometimes four cents under the mar- 

 ket. Of course, a general statement of this kind does not 

 include the prices that have been paid by certain centralizing 

 plants in localities where competition required a very high 

 price in order to get any business, because in some cases prices 

 above New York have been paid for butter fat and the accu- 

 sation has been freely made that this was for the purpose, and 

 with the effect of closing up the local creamery. 



For a good many years the dairy commissioner and the pro- 

 fessors of dairying at the college and a very large number of 

 other persons interested in making the most out of the dairy 

 business of the State have used every effort to induce farm- 

 ers to take better care of their milk and cream to the end that 

 butter might be made to be sold for a higher price. Progress 

 in the proper direction has always been entirely too slow to 

 satisfy the dairy enthusiast. With the advent of the hand sep- 

 arator, it was discovered that the quality of cream delivered 

 was much below the quality of milk delivered, and that the qual- 

 ity of butter made was actually deteriorating, and with the 

 beginning of the cream shipping system the quality of cream 

 has still further deteriorated, for the reason, as already pointed 

 out, that the cream does not reach the buttermaker as soon as 

 it did under other systems, and hence the greater the deteriora- 

 tion. Competition between the central plants and the local 

 plants has been so strong that in only a few localities is any 

 kind of cream rejected. Hence, the farmer, instead of having 



