Producers Creamery at 

 Bloomington Leads State 



By C. N. Atwood 



C\\ ^ F. SCHILLING of Minne- 

 ^^ y 1/ sota, former member of the 

 * Federal Farm Board and 

 one time president of the Twin City Milk 

 Producers, was well received when he 

 addressed the annual meeting of Farmers 

 Creamery Co. and McLean Milk Pro- 

 ducers in Bloomington February 18. 



No panty-waist either in his method 

 of dealing with backsliders in the co- 

 operative program nor in his telling of 

 it, he declared that when a cooperator 

 has a sizeable sum of money invested in 

 his marketing organization, he is a bet- 

 ter cooperator. Near Northfield, where 

 the speaker's farm is located, the co- 

 operative way of doing business is well 

 founded. It has become a part of the 

 community life with f>eople working 

 solidly together for a common purpose. 



"As near as I have been able to learn, 

 your association has enjoyed a steady and 

 substantial growth," he said. "That is the 

 kind of development for a true coopera- 

 tive. But we in Minnesota are far ahead 

 of you in quality of butter. We send a 

 man's milk home when it doesn't come 

 up to the co-op's high standards. Every 

 producer expects to get his milk back if 

 it isn't top quality. We don't want any- 

 thing but the finest milk in the world. Some- 

 day you will learn to do the same thing. You 

 are beginning to see it now." 



Known as the "father of 72 cooperatives," 

 Mr. Schilling advised selecting a board of di- 

 rectors who are the most conservative men in 

 the community and then telling them to go 

 slow. He reminded his listeners that it is a 

 longtime program they are building, and one 

 which progresses step by step. 



"When we rent a farm, we try to rent it 

 for 10 years. Our renters want to know they 

 will have their farms long enough so they 

 can plan how to make the most of their pos- 

 sibilities. They are not interested in the move- 

 every-year program where each tenant takes 

 as much as he can get out of a farm and 

 makes no effort to rebuild it. 



"Right now our renters of 10 years ago have 

 become farm owners. It makes for more 

 stability in marketing as well as in farming." 



A spirit of thanksgiving prevailed at the 

 fifth annual meeting. Approximately 1000 

 stockholders and friends of the creamery lined 

 up to receive their noon luncheon. 



They heard president Harold Enns report 

 that (1) their creamery had not only paid in 

 full its loan of $17,000.00 with interest, but 

 also owned its equipment with assets of over 

 $58,400.00; (2) theirs is the largest coopera- 

 tive creamery in Illinois with a volume of 

 more than ll/^ million pounds annually, (3) 

 its net earnings were greater in 1936 than the 

 year before in spite of lowered production 



and the shifting of two counties to one of the 

 newly organized members of Illinois producers 

 Creameries; (4) nearly 22 per cent of the 

 butter churned was 92 score or higher, 47.5 

 per cent 90 or better; (5) local sales of 

 Prairie Farms butter jumped 36.7 per cent 

 over an already unprecedented sales record. 



During and after lunch, dividend checks 

 representing the current year's portion of a 

 $58,000.00 four-year dividend were being dis- 

 tributed. Last year's earnings allotted pat- 

 ronage and capital stock dividends amounted 

 to $15,895.00. 



Of the nine counties served by the creamery, 

 Logan, DeWitt, and Grundy showed the larg- 

 est gains in pounds of butterfat marketed 

 through their co-op last year. McLean Coun- 

 ty producers sent the most butterfat, with 

 Macoupin-Greene next. The creamery's total 

 area provides over 2200 members who furnish 

 90 per cent of its volume. 



While most of the board members were 

 re-elected, there were two changes this year. 

 Reno Barton will represent Livingston County 

 instead of treasurer Silas Clauss; P. R. Nixon, 

 Macoupin County instead of Thad Loveless. 

 Other directors and officers are: Pres. H. W. 

 Enns, McLean ; treasurer Henry Marten, Lo- 

 gan; Homer Mouser, Macon; Joe Harris, 

 DeWitt; John B. Kidd, LaSalle; Silas Hagen, 

 Grundy; and from the MCMPA, vice-presi- 

 dent Marion Stubblefield, secretary J. Ben 

 McReynolds, Wm. Mays, and Elmer Oren- 

 dorff. 



Sales manager J. B. Countiss enthusiastically 

 reported increased sales advantage and savings 

 from the establishment of a central butter 

 cutting and printing plant in Chicago. He 

 pleaded for a higher percentage of 92 score 

 butter. 



Frank Gougler effectively "eggspostulated" 

 about the startling per cent of our total egg 

 production which becomes unfit for consump- 

 tion before reaching the kitchen. Opportu- 

 nities for savings in cooperative egg market- 

 ing, he challenged, are far greater than in co- 

 operative cream marketing. There are 100,- 

 000,000 dozens of eggs produced annually on 

 Illinois farms for market, compared with only 

 50,000,000 pounds of butterfat. 



Rusty cream cans were roundly condemned 

 by federal grader C. O. Tuttle who pointed 

 out that flavors imparted by these offenders 

 lowered the fine quality of Prairie Farms but- 

 ter, sapped profits from producers. Referring 

 to manager Forrest Fairchild's chart showing 

 how quality lowers in warm weather, he re- 

 minded producers that under their present lax 

 method of caring for cream, the loss per 

 pound due to poor quality was at the time of 

 year when production was greatest. 



At the annual meeting of the McLean Coun- 

 ty Milk Producers Merritt Hensley and George 

 W. Pitts were elected to the board of di- 

 rectors. They replaced Conrad Schaefer, who 

 resigned because of ill health, and Dan Buck. 

 Other directors and officers are: President 

 Marion Stubblefield; vice president Will 

 Mays; treasurer J. Ben McReynolds; secretary 

 Elmer Orendorff, Clarence Ropp, Walter Ris- 

 ser, and Frank Mason. 



Pcntn Power Contracting 



Gains in Popularity 



Farm power contracting recently intro- 

 duced at Peoria, Illinois, has shown such 

 convincing evidence of its practicability 

 and potential profits, that experts expect 

 it to open an important new market for 

 farm machinery and improve general ef- 

 ficiency of the farmer — especially the 

 small farmer, according to Business 

 ■Week. 



At Reddick, Illinois, four Unz brothers 

 and their father found that 800 acres 

 were too much to till by horses, so they 

 bought a tractor. After using it for 

 their own purpose, they decided it was a 

 waste to let the equipment lie idle for the 

 rest of the year. In canvassing their 

 neighbors for odd jobs, they found on 

 practically every farm work of some kind 

 which could be performed cheaper, 



?[uicker, better and timelier than the 

 armer could himself. 



They became experts, not merely in 

 plowing, disking, deep tilling and other 

 field operations, but at grading, stump- 

 pulling, dam building, drainage or water- 

 ing ponds, terraces, driveways and gen- 

 eral road building and maintenance work. 

 When they started, they had just one 

 tractor, and they worked it for more than 

 12,500 hours. Since then they have 

 bought two others and replaced the old 

 one with a diesel-powered model. On 

 the latter, their fuel cost, during more 

 than 2,300 hours of operation, has aver- 

 aged less than 1 5 cents an hour. Adding 

 to that the cost of general maintenance, 

 depreciation and their own labor, they 

 found it possible to establish rates for 

 different jobs that effect important sav- 

 ings all around. 



For example, they will get one cent 

 per bushel for shelling corn. They can 

 do more than 10,000 bushels a day. 

 They plow heavy soil at |1 to $1.25 per 

 acre. They can do better than two acres 

 per hour where a good team of horses 

 would do well to till one and one-half 

 acres in a full day. 



The state cbampion senior 4-year old 



cow, a Holstein-Friesian, produced 

 908.4 pounds of butterfat in a year. 

 She is owned by R. V. Rasmussen, 

 Lake county. 



A steady hog market in the next two 



months is forecast by the Bureau of 

 Agricultural Economics. The outlook 

 favors an advance in prices of choice 

 fed cattle, also a seasonal advance in 

 lower grades. 



H. H. Click, Wayne county, reports 



25 new members signed following a 

 breakfast of 30 volunteer solicitors on 

 a one-day drive. 



MARCH. 1937 



33 



