OLEOMARGAKINE. 1 73 



ments these new ideas of making butter fast by machinery and by 

 centrifugal force, and all that sort of thing. They will gradually get 

 there, but the great dairy industry of this country has not begun to 

 show itself. There is a tremendous field for it. 



Now to go back. Butter started in 1898 notwithstanding this 

 80,000,000 to 100,000,000 pounds of oleo started in at the beginning 

 of the season, with new butter, when prices are supposed to be the 

 lowest of the year, on a basis of from 16i to 17 cents. 



Mr. HOARD. That was creamery butter ? 



Mr. LESTRADE. I am speaking now of creamery. The demand was 

 so great throughout the United States and abroad that the price grad- 

 ually arose to 21, 22, 24, 26, and some of it sold at as high as 27 and 

 28 cents. That butter cost all the way from 17 to 20 cents. The 

 export that year was about 14,000,000 pounds, if I remember rightly. 

 In the spring of this year, to our dismay for we have not felt the 

 effects of it yet; 1 fear we will this packing stock I spoke of this 

 morning this ladle stock, this original butter out of which we make 

 ladles started in on the high basis of from 14 to 15 cents; and a great 

 deal of it was bought during the low prices, what we call low prices, 

 the spring prices, at 15 to 16 cents. This is a most phenomenal price. 

 It can hardly be conceived of. 



This spring creameries started in at 19 cents. Very few of them 

 were sold below 19 cents. These were put away in cold storage, for 

 that is the business of the country generally to-day. It is an under- 

 stood thing. It is hardly called speculative to-day, although it is 

 speculation; but there is hardly ever a time that a creamery man or a 

 dairy man or a commission man or a speculator can not buy his 

 creameries in the spring and put them in cold storage during the 

 months of June and July, and keep them until summer or fall and 

 sell them at a handsome profit. Creameries started in at a very high 

 figure, 19 cents, one of the highest figures that they ever reached for 

 the spring of the year. The price gradually rose from 19 to 21, 22, 

 and 23 cents, and they have been selling as high as 24 cents. I, myself, 

 on account of the demand that I have had from abroad, bought within 

 a month over a thousand tubs of creamery that cost the creamery from 

 16^ to 17 cents, not over 17 cents. I bought them at 23 cents in St. 

 Lawrence County, put down in New York. If the farmers are patrons 

 of those creameries they should also be part owners and have derived 

 the benefit of that advance of from 4 to 5 cents a pound. 



Now, you see the position of the butter industry in this country. It 

 is a money-making industry and always will be, if properly conducted. 

 You ask, What has oleo to do with this, and why is it that there is such 

 an earnest attempt on the part of somebody to crowd out that product? 

 Speaking from the standpoint of an expert, on account of the legitimate 

 rise in value of cheap goods and of creameries, we exporters are hay- 

 ing a hard time of it, leaving the oleo out. We find that we can ship 

 this cheap roll butter, this packing stock that I spoke of, at 16, 17, and 

 18 cents in tins to the hot countries or throughout the world and get 

 back a reasonable profit, but we find that through legitimate sources 

 and the call for these cheap goods throughout the country, as I say, 

 they have put the price of original stock up to 15 or 16 cents. We are 

 crowded pretty hard to see where our profit is coming in, for the rea- 

 son that the foreign market the Danish market, the Italian market, the 

 French market, the Irish market, and the Australian market are able 



