FOURTH ANNUAL YEAR BOOK — PART IV. 208 



HAND SEPARATORS IN IOWA. 



The first statistics of hand separators secured for use in rhe dairy 

 commissioner's reports were obtained in the year 1898. It is evident 

 that any reports made will fall below the actual facts. A number of 

 creameries neglect to report in regard to the number of separators in 

 use and there is no way of determining how many they have. This is 

 true for each of the years, so that for purposes of comparison the fig- 

 ures given below are sufficiently correct and. indeed, it is believed that 

 they do not in any instance fall much below the actual facts. 



XUMBER OF HAND SEPARATORS REPORTED. 



1898 1899 1900 1901 1902 1903 



904 1,762 3,332 5,231 8,323 16,041 



The introduction of the hand separator into Iowa creamery methods 

 has caused something like a revolution in the last six years. The total 

 number of creamery patrons is now estimated to be about seventy-five 

 thousand, of which more than sixteen thousand are using hand separators. 

 This is more than twenty per cent of the total creamery patronage of the 

 State. It is also estimated that fourteen million five hundred thousand 

 pounds of butter are made from hand separator cream. There are in the 

 State thirty-eight creameries that are practically receiving nothing but 

 hand separator cream. Two thirds of the creameries of the State receive 

 cream from one or more hand separators. There are forty-five plants 

 which report that they receive cream shipped to them by rail and of 

 these forty-five plants eleven are receiving nearly all their cream by 

 rail and are properly called centralizing plants. In this connection, 

 attention is called to the fact that sixty-one skim stations have been 

 closed in the State during the last year, and the tendency seems to be 

 to substitute for the skimming station the hand separator and the ship- 

 ping of cream. The skimming station has been found to be a very 

 expensive addition to the local creamery and for this reason it seems 

 certain that the skimming stations will soon disappear. 



CHEESE FACTORIES IN IOWA. 



The report for last year showed fifty-two cheese factories in opera- 

 tion in Iowa, and the list found in this report shows but forty-three 

 cheese factories. Nine of the cheese factories have gone out of busi- 

 ness and two new ones have been established. 



Of the cheese factories now in operation in the State, thirty-one 

 factories report 20,621,763 pounds of milk, from which was made 2.039.- 

 921 pounds of cheese, and the patrons of these factories received $174,864, 

 which is almost exactly 85 cents per hundred pounds for the milk. 

 The largest factory in the State receives almost three million pounds 

 of milk and pays for it an average of 90 cents per hundred. The most 



