466 IOWA DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 



FARM SEPARATORS. 



There are eighty-three creameries of the state which receive cream 

 from twenty-five or more farm separators, ranging in number from 

 Lwenty-five up to 688 for a single creamery. These creameries have 15,500 

 patrons, of whom 6,250 have farm separators. The total number of cream- 

 ery patrons of the state is 81,532, and the number of farm separators, 

 so far as reported, is 8,323, and there are 334 creameries, more than two- 

 fifths of the total number of creameries, which have one or more farm 

 separator patrons. The total number of creamery patrons as given above 

 is obtained by multiplying the average number of patrons of the creameries 

 reported, by the total number of the creameries, and hence, is approxi- 

 mately correct. The number of separators is not so estimated, but it 

 is the real number of farm separators actually reported by those 

 creameries that make a report at all. Hence, the proportion of farm sepa- 

 rator patrons may be a trifle higher than is shown by these figures. The 

 number of farm separators is 10.2 per cent of the creamery patrons of the 

 state. There are nineteen plants in the state that receive only farm 

 separator cream. 



There has been a great deal of discussion of the merits or demerits 

 of the farm separator system, and some of the most extreme views ad- 

 vanced have been by men who knew nothing of the system and its results 

 except the knowledge they may have gained from observation. Some 

 of the views have been correct, and others have been erroneous. With 

 the hope of getting together the ideas of men who have actually had 

 experience of making butter from farm separator cream in the cream- 

 eries of Iowa, the following blank was sent out to the butter makers 

 of the state that had reported more than twenty-five separators among 

 their patrons, and the tables following have been compiled from reports 

 received from these creameries. 



1. County in which your creamery is located 



2. Name of creamery 



:.. Whole number of patrons Number sending cream from hand 



separators Number sending milk 



4. What difference in price, if any, do you make between butter fat in 



milk and in cream ? 



5. Have any of your patrons abandoned the use of the separator after 



using it a reasonable time? How many? And 



for what reason ? 



6. Is the use of the hand separator in your vicinity increasing? 



7. Is the quality of the butter made at your creamery poorer on account 



of the hand separator cream you receive? 



8. Have you had any complaint of the quality of the butter by your 



commission man ? 



9. Do your cream patrons receive more net returns for their butter fat 



than the whole milk patrons of your creamery or of neighboring 

 creameries ? 



10. Do you consider the hand separator system a satisfactory one? 



