PART IV. 



EXTRACTS FROM THE STATE DAIRY COM- 

 MISSIONER'S REPORT FOR 1903. 



H. R . Wright, Dairy Commissioner . 



The condition of the dairy business in the St^.tc is not all that 

 conld be desired. As frequently pointed out in .these reports, 

 the dairy business booms when other lines of agriculture return 

 but meager profits. During the year up to 1898, prices of farm 

 products other than butter were extremely low and uncertain. 

 From and including 1898, prices of other farm products have 

 been very high. This is the chief factor which accounts for the 

 present ebb in the dairy business. Without doubt, the introduc- 

 tion of the hand separator and the centralizing plants have re- 

 duced the output of creamery butter in this State, as is pointed 

 out elsewhere in this report under the discussion of hand separa- 

 tor statistics. One of the striking features which the statistics 

 of the last several years show is that the number of skimming 

 .stations in Iowa is steadily and rapidly decreasing. 



In the boom times of creamery building, beginning about 1896 

 and before the advent of the hand separator and the system of 

 shipping cream by rail from patron to creamery, about the only 

 me^thod by which a creamery could increase its product was by 

 the use of the skimming station system. There have been a 

 number of disastrous failures of the creamery companies that 

 have operated a central plant and numerous skimming stations. 

 There have been other failures, more or less complete and e^jually 



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