NINETEENTH ANNUAL YEAR BOOK— PART V 337 



BUTTER OR OLEOMARGARINE 



Aside from their vastly different nutritive values, butter and 

 oleomargarine have to lowans an economic significance not gen- 

 erally appreciated. 



During the last ten years Iowa has produced an average of 

 95,735,702 lbs. of creamery butter of which about 15% was con- 

 sumed in the state and 85% shipped to eastern markets. These 

 figures are exclusive of the farm dairy butter almost all of which 

 is consumed locally. 



Butter is an Iowa product. The raw material, butterfat, is a 

 continuous cash "crop" from nearly every Iowa farm. Butter is 

 made by Iowa labor, in Iowa factories which are made of Iowa 

 building-materials and equipped with Iowa owned and Iowa made 

 machinery operated by Iowa coal. Most of the manufacturer's 

 profit remains in Iowa where it is spent with Iowa merchants. 



Last year there was made in Iowa 83,349,309 lbs. of creamery 

 butter which the creameries sold for $38,806,989. What became 

 of this money may be seen from the accompanying cut. Eighty- 

 eight and one-half per cent or $34,344,185 was paid to Iowa farmers 

 for the cream and milk containing the butter-fat; 9.3% or $3,609,- 

 049 was spent by the creameries for Iowa labor and power, and 

 most of the remaining $853,755 was distributed among Iowa farm- 

 ers in the form of dividends from their creameries. 



Oleomargarine is not an Iowa product nor does Iowa business 

 derive any benefit from its manufacture. Some hog and beef fat 

 is used as a raw material but by far the larger part of the raw ma- 

 terial is either cottonseed oil, from the southern states or cocoanut 

 oil from the Islands of the Pacific. Most of the oleo reaching Iowa 

 is made in factories located in Illinois, Ohio and Missouri. The 

 stock in these factories is owned there, labor employed there and 

 the laborer's salary and the stockholder's dividends spent there. 



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