514 IOWA DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 



cream. I told him to bring in the skim milk and I would test it, and I 

 found he was leaving eight-tenths of one per cent in the milk. He said it 

 was good enough for him. He was stuck on his separator. He ran it for 

 three months and then he broke a wheel and notified the agent about it; 

 but it hasn't been fixed yet and he is bringing his milk today and he says 

 he is losing money by doing it. The farmers up there say they are getting 

 a dollar a month more out of their cows with the separators. The farmer 

 who had been bringing his milk quit and I asked him if he was going back 

 to the seperator. He told me he had young calves and they did so much 

 better on the milk right on the farm than they did on that brought back 

 from the creamery and then he went out and told some of his neighbors 

 that he had lost $10.00 that month by quitting his separator and sending 

 his milk, which he had done just to please a neighbor. 



When our dairy commissioner gave out his report this year, he had sent 

 out letters with questions like this: "Is the use of the hand separator in 

 your district increasing?" Of 20 answers, 13 said yes, 7 said no. The 

 next questions was. "Is the quality of the butter made at the creamery 

 poor?" Eleven answered yes and 9 answered no. The next was. "Have 

 you had any complaint of the quality of your butter from your commission 

 men?" Seven answered yes. 13 answered no. I said "No" then; three 

 weeks later I would have said, "Yes." Of course it is natural for the butter- 

 makers to think that we are never to blame for anything. Well my com- 

 mission house wired me that the butter was off, to look out. The next 

 morning I received a letter stating that an inch of butter on the top was 

 tainted. Of course I thought at once that it was the hand separator. So 

 [ took my hand separator cream and kept it by itself and churned it and I 

 took the milk and kept the cream off it by itself and churned it. Used the 

 same starter and everything in each case. I sent it into the commission 

 house marked, and they answered that they couidn't see any difference. 

 So I made up my mind the fault must be with the buttermaker, but of 

 course I didn't tell the directors. The butter has come around all right 

 now. But about six weeks after I had tried to find out what the trouble 

 with this butter was and had failed, we one day opened a barrel of salt that 

 had a peculiar odor. I said I am not going to use that salt except on four 

 tubs. I did and sent it to the commission men and next week received a 

 telegram, 'Four tubs tainted." Now I had a little experience with a com- 

 mission house which calls to mind what our president said last night, that 

 he hoped the day would come when butter would be sold on its merits. The 

 last year I was at the other creamery we were shipping to New York and 

 I had my butter scored by Healey every month. One day when I was busy 

 at the creamer the secretary came down and handed me my returns, butter 

 scoring 85. I threw the thing on the floor, but on second thought I picked 

 it up and looked at it again and saw that it was not mine. It was returns 

 from a commission house in New York I had never shipped to. The name 

 of the creamery was the same, but some mistake had been made. We 

 went up town and there found my returns, and I had scored 96, and that 

 man whose butter had scored 85 was getting just the same price that I 

 was for mine. We were selling on the same basis too. Now the sooner 

 we can get to a point where we sell butter on its own merits the better. 



