PART VIII 



EXTRACTS FROM 

 STATE DAIRY COMMISSIONER'S 



REPORT OF 1907. 



TWENTY-FIRST ANNUAL 



H. R. WRIGHT, Commissioner 



CONDITIONS OF THE DAIRY INDUSTRY. 



There have been no extraordinary changes in the dairy and creamery 

 conditions in Iowa during the last twelve months, other than might 

 easily have been forecasted a year ago. The change from the whole-milk 

 system to the hand and sepai-ator and gathered cream system has con- 

 tinued to a marked degree and the patronage of the so-called centralizing 

 creameries has increased in the aggregate. The strife between centraliza- 

 tion and the system of local co-operative creameries has become more in- 

 tense. As heretofore pointed out, nearly one-half of the area of this State 

 is without local creameries, and the farmers in those sections must of 

 necessity patronize the central plants. There is no point in Iowa more 

 than seventy miles by rail from at least two central plants, and consider- 

 able quantities of cream are shipped out of the State to Minneapolis, 

 Chicago, Omaha and St. Joseph, Mo. Considerable quantities are shipped 

 into the State from Northern Missouri and from South Dakota and North- 

 eastern Nebraska. The movement of cream on passenger trains in this 

 State has become a matter of very great moment both to the railroads 

 and to the larger creameries. 



The combined efforts of the dairy forces, of the college, of this de- 

 partment, of the Farmers' Institutes of the State, and of the creameries 

 themselves, have in the last several years very greatly improved existing 

 conditions. The change from the whole-milk to the gathered cream sys- 

 tem resulted disastrously to the quality and value of butter made, but 

 gradually the quality has become better and the last year has seen a 



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