192 OLEOMARGARINE. 



To prove that there is less gained b}^ coloring butterine than butter we 

 will take some average prices of the different products for the summer 

 and winter months, admitting, for the sake of argument, that both but- 

 ter and butterine are colored during all seasons of the year. During 

 the grass or summer months of the year butter retails at from 15 to 

 20 cents per pound, and butterine at from 15 to 17i cents per pound. 

 During the winter months butterine retails at about 20 cents per 

 pound, while we all know that butter brings an average price of about 

 27i cents per pound. By this comparison you will note that butter- 

 ine advances about 2 cents per pound during the winter season, and 

 butter about 7i cents per pound, and that both products are admitted 

 to be colored. Now, then, I would ask, What price butter would bring 

 in the winter time if it was sold in its natural color of white ? I will 

 answer this myself by stating that the average price would be some- 

 thing like 10 to 15 cents per pound, and could then only be sold for 

 cooking or baking purposes. You will therefore note by the above 

 illustration, and I think that the prices are fairly given, that there is 

 not such a fearful fraud committed in coloring butterine as some of 

 the dairy papers would have their readers believe, and indeed the shoe 

 could be put on the other foot if the Elgin butter prices of last winter 

 are taken into account. 



Creamery butter makers will remember very distinctly that the Elgin 

 Board of Trade last winter steadily advanced the price of butter to 29 

 cents per pound wholesale, and we all know that these prices are made 

 each Monday on the Elgin board and are supposed to hold good for the 

 remainder of the week. A great many people predicted that this high 

 price of creamery butter was fictitious, and their prediction was veri- 

 fied when the next meeting of the board reduced the price from 29 

 cents to 24 cents per pound, and which, as far as we know, is the 

 greatest drop that ever occurred in the Elgin Board of Trade in one 

 week's time. We can only conjecture what would have been the price 

 of butter on the Elgin Board of Trade last year if there had been a 

 law forbidding the use of yellow coloring, but we can be reasonably 

 positive that the price would not have been 29 cents per pound. 

 Another absurd charge made through the dairy journals is that but- 

 terine is sold for butter and that if the consumers really knew that they 

 were eating butterine that the manufacture and sale of butterine would 

 almost amount to nothing. To this charge we can only refer our com- 

 petitors to the statement of the honorable Commissioner of Internal 

 Revenue, in which he says that less than 3 per cent of butterine was 

 sold contrary to law. Now, then, who eats the other 97 per cent? 

 Close observation on this point has divided the consumers of butterine 

 into two distinct classes, the first being those who consume it from 

 choice and who are familiar with its composition, manufacture, etc., 

 and the other class are those who consume it from necessity, on account 

 of the reduced price at which it can be purchased, and close observa- 

 tion further proves that a great part of the former class is made up 

 from the latter, because of the cultivation of the taste for the product 

 which is encouraged by continuous consumption. 



Friends of the Grout bill say that the sale of butterine is growing to 

 an alarming extent. That, in my opinion, is the best indorsement that 

 the product is meeting favorably not only with the pocketbook but 

 with the taste of the consumer. Of course, the sale of butterine is 

 growing every year, and it will ever continue to do so. Because of its 



