OLEOMARGARINE. 421 



Senator MONEY. That is not my experience, though. 



Secretary WILSON. If you feed cows iu the winter time green-cured 

 hay, or sugar beets, or mangles, or carrots, you color your butter. 



Senator MONEY. I believe they used to color butter with carrots 

 after it was made, after the cow had ceased to perform her part of the 

 function. 



Secretary WILSON. There is no difficulty about having naturally 

 colored butter. It is colored by the grass in summer. That is nature's 

 way, and when you imitate nature you are probably not going very 

 far wrong ; but we do not know enough about milk, any of us yet, to be 

 able to form a substitute that will stay on the stomach the same as 

 butter. 



Senator MONEY. Did I understand you correctly awhile ago I do 

 not know that I did in the reading of your very clear paper, to say 

 that you favor bacteria as an agent for producing digestible food! 



Secretary WILSON. No ; the position I take is this : When you draw 

 milk from the cow, the moment you expose it nature has bacteria germs 

 falling into it. 



Senator MONEY. Exactly. 



Secretary WILSON. That is the flavoring agent. 



Senator MONEY. You want to maintain that flavoring agent, do you? 

 In other words, do you want the bacteria in the milk ? 



Secretary WILSON. Nature has arranged that. Without that you 

 can not get any flavor, and the oleomargarine men, knowing that, wash 

 their product in skim milk. 



Senator MONEY. That is true; but do they not heat that product to 

 such a degree that it is absolutely fatal to all sorts of germs ? 



Secretary WILSON. I do not know what they always do. 



Senator MONEY. That is what they do. 



Secretary WILSON. If they do, then there is no element to make a 

 flavor, and without a fine flavor digestibility is not as good. 



Senator MONEY. I do not want any germ flavor in my butter, or in 

 my oleomargarine, either. 



Secretary WILSON. You can not get cows' butter without it. 



Senator MONEY. That may be true, but you can get oleomargarine 

 without it. 



Secretary WILSON. Well, you have a perfect right to buy oleomar- 

 garine, but I do not want you to be deceived and pay 10 cents a pound 

 too much. The poor people are being robbed by this deception to the 

 extent of 10 cents a pound; and you and I, who have to take butter 

 from second or third hands in this city, are deceived regularly. If you 

 will send ine samples of the butter you are eating between now and 

 spring I will tell you the percentage of it that is oleomargarine. I will 

 have it analyzed. In fact, we have been analyzing it for members of 

 Congress who have sent samples to us. 



Senator MONEY. I will send you some over. 



Secretary WILSON. I sent a reply yesterday to Congressman Dahle, 

 who had sent us a sample. 



Senator HEITFELD. You spoke about paying 10 cents a pound too 

 much. What price ought it to sell at? 



Secretary WILSON. I suppose fats vary in value on the markets the 

 same as butter does, -but you will always find that the fats of commerce 

 are cheaper than the fats of the cow. 



Senator DOLLIVER. A prospectus of the great butterine corporation 

 which is about to put up a plant here, with a capital of a million dollars, 

 as an inducement to an investment, states that the aggregate value of 



