272 IOWA DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 



The oleomargarine makers of the United States during the govern- 

 under the last year of the old law, when the greater amount of oleo- 

 the commissioner of internal revenue of the treasury department, 12G.- 

 315,427 pounds of oleomargarine. That was their last year under th(^ 

 old law wherein colored oleomargarine was taxed but two cents T)er 

 pound. In the manner that butter is loaded in refrigerators, this would 

 amount to 6,031 cars of 20,000 pounds each, or 2.506.000 tubs of fifty 

 pounds. The average tub of butter scarcely weighs fifty pounds, but 

 this is made fifty pounds for convenience. 



During the fiscal year ending July, 1, 1903 (the first year under the 

 new law), these same olefomargarine makers produced 71,211,244 pounds 

 of oleomargarine, of which 68,490.800 were uncolored and 2.720,440 

 colored, the former paying one quarter cent tax and the latter ten cents. 

 In car lots the production for the last fiscal year was equal to 3,550 car- 

 Toads of 20,000 pounds each, or 1,424,000 tubs of fifty pounds each. 



This was a decrease under the new law of 2,481 carloads, 1,082,000 

 fifty-pound tubs, or 44 per cent, which would load 103 trains of twenty- 

 four cars each, in face of .a market for butter which averaged under the 

 new law one and one half cents higher for extras in creamery than 

 under the last year of the old law, when the greater amount t)f oleo- 

 margarine was produced. We had a higher price for butter. In face 

 of that higher price for butter they sold 44 per cent less oleomargarine 

 and, as Mr. Shilling has stated, during five months of that year they 

 had access to a secret way of coloring their oleomargarine which the 

 government chemists failed to discover in a practical way until very 

 late in the season. 



What does this mean to the dairying public? 



It would require six hundred and fifty average size creameries to 

 produce in a year the butter necessary to take the place of the 55,000.000 

 pounds of oleomargarine which the ten cent tax law has displaced. This- 

 butter, at an average of twenty cents per pound, would bring the dairy- 

 men of this country $11,020,836. 



So much for the value of the increased product for which a market 

 has been made. 



But in addition to this, dairymen for the first year under the new 

 law received one and one half cents more for their butter than during 

 the previous year under the old law The census of 1900 shows that the 

 creameries of the country during the year produced 439.954.173 poun:ls 

 of butter. An increase of one and one half cents per pound upon this 

 product means $6,195,187 in the pockets of the patrons of the creamer- 

 ies alone, which, divided amoung creameries, means an average increase 

 of $1,500 for the year in the selling price of the butter of the average 

 creamerj\ 



It is safe to say. however, that instead of one and one half cents 

 per piound, as estimated, the new national law has saved the producers 

 of milk at least three cents per pound, because the market instead of 

 having averaged one and one half cents higher, would have averaged 

 at least one and one cent lower as a result of continued encroachments 

 of oleomargarine, the traffic in which increased during the fiscal year 



