THIRD ANNUAL YEAR BOOK— PART IX. 483 



Among the first work I did as president of your organization, to 

 improve conditions was calling upon the butter makers to form into organi- 

 zations for the purpose of bettering their knowledge of butter making by 

 engaging in educational tests. The results have far exceeded our ex- 

 pectations. Without a single exception there has not been a backward 

 step in the score at any of these meetings. Every organization has made 

 a score in advance of the one preceding. The butter makers responded 

 almost to a man where it was possible for them to come into contact with 

 these organizations. The traveling men have helped willingly and without 

 them it would have been impossible to have carried on the work. We have 

 had the hearty co-operation of our state dairy commissioner who has 

 never failed to attend a meeting and have his deputy there. We have had 

 the hearty co-operation of Ames. They have explained everything we 

 have asked them to, and all they have asked is that we pay the expenses 

 of the men they sent to score the butter and tell us how to remedy it. 

 The progress made has been so gratifying I would urge the importance of 

 maintaining these organizations, and I would tell the creamerymen, as I 

 have told the farmers' institutes, the necessity of uniting with one of 

 these organizations. They should see that their butter makers do this. 

 It was our intention when we started out to make these for the butter 

 makers as well as the patrons and get them together and have a better 

 understanding, and we have been very successful, especially at the late 

 meetings. I believe there is another way in which we can get hold of the 

 patron, and that is by holding joint picnics. One or two creameries or two 

 or three, get together and have a picnic every year and have a speaker 

 there ami entertain them. .The ground work of the whole thing is the 

 fanner and we have to get him. 



One thing particularly gratifying to me is this: The importance of 

 improving the standard of our butter is so manifest that I do not think 

 today we have a traveling man in the state of Iowa, whether he is selling 

 creamery supplies, salt, or is a railroad agent, but is lending his best 

 iniluence to help along the improvement of butter. 



Now one thing more I believe would add greatly to the raising of 

 the standard of Iowa butter, and you may think me radical ; it may be some- 

 thing you will not bear me out in. but I believe we should have a license 

 law in the state of Iowa. Out of our butter makers only one-fourth of them 

 I believe are members of this association; there is a class we have been 

 unable to reach as yet. I believe if we had a license law in the state in 

 which a first certificate, second and third, were awarded that the tendency 

 would be for each butter maker to stand as high as possible. I have in 

 mind a creamery in Iowa which sells three or four cents below western 

 extras, and the state officers have no hold upon this class of butter makers, 

 and the creamery patrons have no protection against them. If we had a 

 license law founded as I have just mentioned the incentive would be for 

 every butter maker to strive to obtain a first grade license, and in case they 

 made no progress along this line the state officers would have the right to 

 revoke the certificate already held. I would recommend that this matter 

 be taken up in one of our meetings and resolutions passed, if it meets 



