288 IOWA DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 



common with other dealers, believed that there would still remain among 

 the cheaper classes a certain demand for these goods and that the lack 

 of color would have little effect, except that it would be sold for what it 

 was and at correspondingly proper prices. We therefore took out a 

 license for the sale of uncolored oleomargarine and during the first sixty 

 days that we handled these goods induced about one hundred of our cus- 

 tomers to take out a license for the sale of the goods. In all of these 

 cases we supplied them with their original purchases and not one out 

 of ten of them were able to sell the goods, and not to exceed two or 

 three duplicated their orders. These, too, finally discontinued it. The 

 result of the six months' vigorous campaign among this class of dealers 

 was that we had less trade than when we started. It was demonstrated 

 clearly that people would not buy oleomargarine if they knew it, that is, 

 where they bought the goods for their own consumption. 



The trade in oleomargarine in our city has dwindled to next to noth- 

 ing; before the law went into effect we had a large oleo factory, which 

 has since been turned to other uses, the proprietors discontinuing the 

 manufacture of these goods; not one store in fifty carries them, and on 

 only a few of the stands in the market are the goods to be found. The 

 only demand exists from a certain class of cheap restaurants and board- 

 ing houses. Whether the goods are doctored before being served at 

 these places we have no means of knowing. But in so far as consumers 

 buying the goods for their own use, the traffic in Cleveland is completely 

 at a standstill. 



It has been an enormous benefit to us in the butter trade, especially 

 in this season of extremely heavy production. Our own butter sales for 

 the month of August, September and October were over 40 per cent 

 in excess of the sales of a year ago. We have also built up a heavy 

 outside trade among communities where "oleomargarine" was solely 

 used, and it is safe to say that there are in our territory alone upwards 

 of two hundred thousand people who are using butter today that have 

 not been for years. The same conditions doubtless exist in all other 

 markets where "'oleo" was supreme. 



That this has been a wonderful value to the dairy industries can not 

 be questioned, even if prices are not at the present time where produc- 

 ers would likp to see theni. Had it not been for this new channel that 

 was opened to the butter trade there would have been nothing but dis- 

 aster for us in the enormous production of this season. However, the 

 greater portion of it has been cared for and has gone into consumption. 

 While stocks are heavier than dealers wish, yet we do not believe that 

 if the present consumption holds good up to the first of April, we will see 

 any stock of butter on hand anywhere in this country. Had it not been 

 for this heavy consumption, stimulated by the discontinuance of the sale 

 of oleomargarine, prices of butter would have had to decline to the level 

 of foreign prices. We have before us on one hand a cold-blooded busi- 

 ness proposition, that we fight for the very life and existence of that 

 business, as its prosperity affects each of us in its varied phases and 

 while this is the view that will most likely enlist our sympathies quick- 



