268 IOWA DEPARTMENT OP AGRICULTURE 
of grief and trouble, and in the end lost for him his reputation as a good 
buttermaker. The commission merchant, liKewise, has been in the 
game, not from a maker's standpoint, but from a seller's standpoint, and 
he, to say the least, has contributed his share of grief. Then comes the 
consumer, another party in this drama, and one whom should not be left 
out. The consumer is the one that strikes the fatal blow when he abso- 
lutely declines to pay out his hard-earned cash for any but a good, sweet 
and wholesome butter. The consumer is looking for good butter, and he 
should have it. 
Now it is not my purpose to chastice the maker, but it is my purpose 
to chastice the producer— the one that delivers the raw material. He is 
the one I am after. The careless, unscrupulous and unclean producer is 
the one I want to talk to and about. Thousands of dollars are spent try- 
ing to doctor up this cream, and thousands of dollars are lost because of 
this inferior product. There is always some who will tell a producer of 
this character that his cream is good stuff (at the same time dreaming 
of a new customer from his competitor) whether it is or isn't. 
To get down to the point. Can we expect under existing conditions to 
make better butter next year, and the next and the next? I will leave 
that to you. 
I do not mean to say that all butter is poor, for there is a lot of mighty 
fine butter being made, but I am speaking of the poor butter due to 
carelessness on the farm, the place where it is kept before it is offered 
for sale or brought to the creamery. 
A great many farmers deliver a fine article — clean, sweet and whole- 
some, but what is the incentive, when it nas to be mixed with the poor 
and all the efforts of the one who tried to deliver a good article is des- 
troyed by the one who is careless and unclean. I say again, that it is 
the dirty producer we must get after. Something must be done to better 
the conditions, either in an educational way, teaching and enlightening 
the producer or passing laws compelling them to do certain things neces- 
sary for a better raw material. Butter graces the table of nearly every 
home in the land, and why should we not always have good butter? Would 
not the buttermaker be tickled if he could always receive raw material 
in such condition that he could make fancy butter every day? The com- 
mission man w^ould, in turn, rejoice. How would the consumer like it, 
and how about the creamery business in general, from the producer to 
the consumer? 
Iowa is a state that should make a definite and distinct stand for 
quality in every sense of the word. In union there is power, and in 
union there is strength. If every creamery would use their influence in 
the territory they occupy, if every creamery (co-operative, individual or 
centralizer) would go to work for quality, for the betterment of the dairy 
Industry in general, for quality of the raw material, if this should happen 
we would astonish the markets of the world. If this would happen we 
would see such a growth and development in the dairy business as never 
has been before. If this should happen the press would herald it from 
sea to sea, from pole to pole, and the moral effect would so strengthen the 
interest that other states would follow. 
