EIGHTH ANNUAL YEAR BOOK-PART VII. 341 



been at Alden I have had just one boy that could weigh to suit me, and 

 that is my own boy. He is at Ames now and going to stay there for the 

 next three years if nothing happens. He weighs, and I think the man- 

 ager will bear me out in the statement that the patrons like him and if 

 anything goes wrong he calls me. I like to be at the weigh can, where I 

 can meet the farmers. We have farmers that have not been in our 

 creamery for over a year and they come to the creamery every other 

 day. They will come there and fill up their skim milk cans, or if they 

 bring cream, go away. We enlarged our creamery this spring and one 

 man was in there the day before yesterday. He said, "I have not been 

 in here since you built on," and he was a stockholder, too. 



After you get through at the weigh can go to the starter can. I 

 have been called a crank on starter; perhaps I am. I have been making 

 butter twelve years and I think twelve batches of butter would take in all 

 I ever made without a starter. I made starter when there was no starter 

 can that I knew of. I believe I got the first Haugdahl starter can that 

 was made. It had a wooden bottom in it and I think about the second 

 day the wood spread and the bottom and whole thing was gone; it leaked. 

 That did not discourage me. Make a starter and if you do not know how 

 to make a starter go to the college and have Prof. Bouske teach you how 

 to make a starter; it will only take a few days to learn how and it will 

 bring up the grade of your butter. Some of you may ask why my butter 

 did not score more than 90 here if I had a good starter. I had a good 

 starter, but I may have had some of that old cream. I did not aim to, 

 but likely got it. At the short course at Ames in the winter you can 

 learn how to make a starter. I was told not long ago about a man about 

 whom we boast a good deal in Iowa, who got a starter can; he used 

 Ericsson culture, pasteurized his milk in the starter can, put the culture 

 right in the starter can and let it stand there until it got sour; then he 

 used a pail of that starter every day for a week. Now if any man on 

 earth with any judgment thinks that will make good butter he is mistaken. 



After we have a good starter we want to come to the cream vat. If 

 you have an open vat you can make good butter with it if you try. The 

 supply houses will tell you one kind or another is best; I do not know 

 which is best; I am not prepared to say; I never used any until the last 

 few days, but be sure and ripen your cream. Now I am not going to ad- 

 vise you to do as Mortenson, of Portland, did. He came to a cr^mery 

 where I was making butter and remained there eleven days and he would 

 sit up with the cream until 2 o'clock in the morning or get it just right 

 before he would leave. I sat up with him during that time until way 

 into the night to get the cream right and I told him if I had to make 

 butter that way I would quit the business in twenty-four hours. There 

 is a lot of hand separator cream that is ready to churn when it is re- 

 ceived at the creamery. In that case I cool it down to 48 and hold it 

 over until I get ready to churn. 



Then comes the last operation, the churning of it. Prof. McKay said 

 something last night about a man churning in a Disbrow churn at 56 to 

 58 and not getting any overrun. Well, I can churn at 56 in the Disbrow 

 churn and I will not tell you what overrun I could get if I wanted to. 

 We have to be a little careful now since the moisture question has come 



