NINTH ANNUAL YEAR BOOK— PART VIII 339 
offense charged was raising the test, evidently for the purpose of de- 
stroying competition and the buyer was very properly fined an agre- 
gate of $50 and costs. Numerous complaints of similar offenses have 
been made and some of them seem to have been well founded, but 
it has been impossible to secure satisfactory evidence to warrant 
prosecutions. 
During the year the department has conducted an educational 
scoring contest of four numbers in addition to the State Fair But- 
ter exhibit and the exhibit at the meeting of the State Dairy Asso- 
ciation. The butter at each of these scorings, except that of the 
dairy association has been scored by the assistant commissioners 
and no small amount of effort has been put forth by them to 
make these scorings successful. Nearly seven hundred tubs of 
butter have been scored and careful criticisms made and sent to 
the respective makers of the exhibits in the hope that these criti- 
cisms will be of value in the further improvement of their product. 
It is expected and intended that a similar scoring will be held during 
the next year. 
QUALITY OF IOWA BUTTER. 
From all over the country, without an exception, makers of but- 
ter and particularly dealers in this product are complaining that the 
butter which they now make is at least not better than that which 
they made three, or five, or ten years ago, notwithsanding increase 
in knowledge and ability of buttermakers generally, and notwith- 
standing the introduction of improved methods during the last 
decade. No part of the country that produces butter at all is free 
fronj this complaint, and in the last analysis of causes for the situ- 
ation practically everybody has agreed that while there may be 
other reasons, the principal reason is the character of the raw mate- 
rial which comes to the creamery. Every butter producing state 
in the Union is giving great quantities of the poor grades of butter, 
so much so, that the markets of the country are always overstocked 
with undergrades and are always short on the higher and better 
grades. It is difficult, of course, to compare the quality of butter 
produced nowadays to that produced in the years gone by. It is 
perhaps true that the market is more critical ; it is likely true that 
buttermakers, themselves, are demanding better results than for- 
merly; it is possible that dairy schools and dairy instructors are 
keener in their criticisms than formerly, but at any rate, the 
demand for better quality of butter is universal on the part of pro- 
