454 IOWA DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 



In the larger creameries a good deal of attention is given to 

 this matter because it is closely connected with the question of 

 profits. In the small creameries comparatively little attention 

 is given to the matter except in a few instances. Our cream- 

 eries average about 120,000 pounds of butter per year. The 

 usual overrun used to be stated universally as one-sixth or 

 about 16 per cent. When the month's work and payment were 

 figured up and the overrun of butter over butter fat was com- 

 puted, and deviation from a 16 per cent overrun, whether it 

 was more or less than this amount, was invariably charged to 

 inaccuracy in testing. While the fact was recognized that the 

 amount of water and salt and casein in butter were variable 

 quantities, it was scarcely suspected that skill in butter making 

 could change any of these except, of course, the salt which 

 might be added in almost any amount. The Dairy Depart- 

 ment at Ames, by a series of experiments and investigations 

 showed that not only could a skillful buttermaker make his 

 overrun almost anything he desired, but that certain butter- 

 makers in successful creameries were already doing it ; that a 

 16 per cent overrun could easily and legitimately be increased 

 to 20 per cent or even 25 per cent overrun. That is, the skill- 

 ful buttermaker can make butter having in it only 80 per cent 

 of butter fat just as easily and as certainly as he can make 

 butter containing 86 per cent of butter fat. In the one case 

 he would have a 25 per cent overrun and in the other he would 

 have the usual overrun of about 16 per cent. And the butter 

 containing but 80 per cent of butter fat serves the purpose of 

 the consumer, meets all the requirements of any market for 

 flavor or body or qualities of any kind, violates no law either 

 state or national and traverses no regulations of any kind or 

 character. And yet with all these effects so perfectly under- 

 stood, so often put in print and so thoroughly discussed, very 

 few buttermakers know what their overrun is except from the 

 books of the creamery at the end of the month, and . very few 

 creamery managers seem to care whether their buttermaker 

 makes a proper overrun or not, he gets no more nor no less 

 wages on account of his skill or lack of it in this particular. 

 In a few cases the assistant dairy commissioners have found 



