THIRD ANNUAL YEAR BOOK — PART IX. 515 



The hand separator people claim there is much saved in hauling. That 

 may be true. We lost a great deal of milk last summer because it was so 

 muddy we couldn't get the milk through. We had in our district a man 

 who bought a separator last fall and he had always raised good calves. 

 This last year he lost all his calves. That man was at the depot yesterday 

 when I came away, and I said, "You have lost all your calves this winter?" 

 He said, "Yes, but I don't blame the hand separator." I don't think we 

 can do as our dairy commissioner tells us. make them skim a 35 per cent 

 cream, but I believe we can make pretty good butter out of hand separa- 

 tor cream. The hand separators are here and I think they are going to 

 stay. I have heard the remark made that they will get tired of them after 

 awhile and set them aside. Now we have lots of men who have bought their 

 second separator and I think they are going to use them. I think a butter- 

 maker should insist on their getting a separator which will skim a good 

 cream, and insist on the separators being kept clean. An agent came to 

 Alden once last fall and told all the farmers that it wasn't necessary to 

 wash the separators more than once a week. And I think this class of 

 separator agents have done more to injure the quality of Iowa butter than 

 anything else. But there are some good agents and occasionally they tell 

 a buyer to go to his buttermaker and find out how to take care of his sep- 

 arator. That is all I have to say. 



HAND SEPARATOR VERSUS WHOLE MILK. 



E. Pufahl, Nora Springs, Iowa. 



I came up here to discuss the question from the hand separator stand- 

 point. In the first place I would say that Mr. Trimble said he was only 

 getting one-half cent above when he started in, and had to learn how to 

 handle hand separator cream, and now he has worked it up so that he is 

 getting one cent above. When he told about his commission merchant 

 telling him that his butter was a little bit off I thought the hand seperator 

 was going to catch it, but it seems he kept his hand separator cream and 

 other cream separate and made butter from both and the commission mer- 

 chant couldn't tell the difference. I have prepared a paper on the subject, 

 which I will read : 



Five years ago it would have been a hard task for a person to discuss 

 the advantages of the hand separator over the whole milk system because 

 he would have been compelled to talk mostly from a theoretical stand- 

 point; today he can say, it has been tried and successfully stood the test. 

 To begin with I will say where a whole milk creamery is running success- 

 fully, the admitting of hand separator cream causes confusion because it 

 cuts up the milk routes. If the farmer sending in hand separator cream is 

 compelled to pay as much for the hauling of it as for the milk, he will be- 

 come dissatisfied and he stirs up agitation and either forces the company 

 to haul his cream cheaper or else he takes it to the nearest railway station 

 and ships it. 



