SIXTH ANNUAL YEAR BOOK — PART VI. 457 



ise of high premiums. Nearly every year some creamery man- 

 ager is induced to ship to some unknown firm by reason of 

 excessive premiums offered, and later is compelled to mourn 

 the loss of the butler, so shipped. Reliable commission houses 

 easily show their responsibility by their ratings in the commer- 

 cial agencies or by unquestionable bank references and it is 

 only the incautious manager than can be deceived by the 

 swindler. 



THE "WATER SEPARATOR." 



One of the causes of thin and poor cream is the so-called water 

 "separator." Those factories that make any distinction between the 

 different lots of cream offered them pay two cents less a pound for but- 

 ter fat in "hand-skimmed or water separator" cream, for the reason that 

 it is likely to be 24 hours older than hand separator cream, and so 

 of poorer quality; and also is usually of low per cent and hence the 

 freights on it are greater in proportion to its value in butter fat. Not 

 only does the farmer get less price for his cream raised by the "water" 

 method but he loses very much butter fat in the skimmed milk left 

 by the method. If his water "separator" is of the dilution kind he 

 also spoils his skimmed milk for feeding purposes by diluting it mors 

 than 50 per cent. 



No deep setting system has yet been devised that is superior in 

 results, either in quality of cream produced or closeness of skimming 

 to the well-known submerged cans of the Cooley system. The Cooley 

 system went out of date twenty years ago because the power separator 

 at the creamery would get out of the milk enough more butter fat 

 than the Cooley system to pay the charge of ten or twelve cents a 

 hundred pounds for hauling the milk and show a profit besides. Yei 

 in the last tw^o years hundreds of farmers have bought water "sepa- 

 rators," inferior to the kinds discarded a score of years since. 



The water dilution system is a kind of perennial humbug inflicted 

 periodically upon the agricultural public for the exclusive and personal 

 benefits of their makers and salesmen. The Iowa Dairy Commissioner's 

 Report of 1899 denounces the dilution "separator" as a humbug and 

 'quotes from agricultural experiment stations as far back as 1890 to 



