480 OLEOMARGARINE. 



color for 1,000,000 pounds of butter and 240 gallons of color for 1,000,000 

 pounds of oleomargarine that is to say, if we take 100 as a basis and 

 make 240 gallons of color the amount necessary to bring oleomargarine 

 from white up to the normal color of butter, then the natural color of 

 butter would be 66| per cent of the color that it has the year round. 



Mr. JELKE. Mr. Knight, will you permit just one question? 



Mr. KNIGHT. Yes, sir. 



Mr. JELKE. Does your creamery man state what strength of butter 

 color he uses? Sometimes it is double and triple strength. I under- 

 stand they make a special color which is very powerful. 



Mr. KNIGHT. No. Wells, Richardson & Co.'s colors are what they 

 use, Mr. Jelke, the same as your firm does. 



Mr. JELKE. I think they make more than one standard. 



Mr. KNIGHT. No, sir; not unless they make it especially strong 

 for you. 



Mr. JELKE. We do not use a specially strong color; but they make 

 it, and I know it has been offered to us. We have not used it, however. 



Mr. KNIGHT. Wells, Richardson & Co. make but one kind of butter 

 color that is used in the West for butter. I am very familiar with their 

 business in that respect. Moreover, we surely do not need for butter 

 (which is partly yellow in the first place) a strong color. It is the oleo- 

 margarine people who need the strong color, because they have got to 

 bring their color from a white up to a standard. And I think they found, 

 when they first attempted to color their product, that carrots were 

 needed in very large quantities to make their substitute as yellow as 

 they wanted it; and it was the necessity of getting a very strong color 

 that led them to the use of the aniline colors for that purpose. 



Mr. MILLER. There is one reason why there is that difference in the 

 amount of coloring matter used at the time of the year when the 

 cows are on grass they need very little color. 



Mr. KNIGHT. Yes; that is true. 



Mr. MILLER. That accounts for the difference of which you spoke. 



Mr. KNIGHT. Oh, not entirely. That is only a third of the year. 



Mr. MILLER. You will acknowledge, however, that that is the time 

 of the year when they make the largest amount of butter. 



Mr. KNIGHT. Yes; they make the largest amount of butter then. 

 So that is a concession that a large amount of the butter production is 

 naturally yellow. 



Representative BAILEY. It takes just as much coloring matter to 

 make white butter yellow as it does to make white butterine yellow, 

 does it not? 



Mr. KNIGHT. Yes; but the butter is never as white as oleomargarine. 



Representative BAILEY. Oh, yes, it is. 



Mr. KNIGHT. That is a difference of opinion, then, which we can not 

 settle here in the committee. 



Representative BAILEY. Why, everybody who has lived on a farm 

 and who has eaten butter made in the winter knows it. 



The ACTING CHAIRMAN. How expensive is the color? 



Mr. KNIGHT. That color costs the oleomargarine people about $1.70 

 a gallon, I think. It costs the butter people more. 



The ACTING CHAIRMAN. For the reason that the oleomargarine man- 

 ufacturers buy such large quantities? 



Mr. KNIGHT. Yes; they do buy large quantities. As a matter of 

 fact, there is more butter color used in the oleomargarine that is made 

 in the United States than there is used in all the creameries in butter. 

 I have investigated that subject, and I know what the business of the 

 concerns in butter color is, because I have gone into the matter. 



