538 OLEOMARGARINE. 



almost 100 per cent. It is worth from 5 to .1.0 cents a pound more than 

 it was. It is a fact also that the people used to eat this butter wit h the 

 filth in it, whereas now the filth is taken out of it 7 if it ever was in it; 

 but whatever filth was in it used to be consumed. 



Mr. JELKE. It is made on the farm. 



Mr. KNIGHT. I want to point to another conclusion. I think you will 

 all agree that butter made under any kind of favorable circumstances, 

 where the cows have eaten the natural grass or prepared food, is better 

 than butter that is left lying around and has become rancid and then 

 sent to Chicago to be made into oleomargarine in the winter. Every 

 year the retail dealer gets out his oleomargarine license, and his cus- 

 tomers, who have been buying butter all the time, suddenly change 

 their minds, and he consequently does not buy any more butter at all. 

 Our butter piles in our cellars, stands there three or four weeks, depre- 

 ciating from 3 to 5 cents on every pound; there is no sale for it. There 

 is where there is a tremendous loss to the dairymen. 



Senator DOLLIVER. That is a very interesting statement. 



Mr. KNIGHT. I think I will have to tell you how I happened to g6 

 into the factories. Mr. Pierson, of the Agricultural Department, came 

 put West and asked the manufacturers of process butter to let him 

 inspect their plants. The process-butter makers did not want him to 

 inspect their plants, for the reason that he was publishing bulletins of 

 everything he had got hold of, and they did not want their secret in 

 regard to their machinery to get out. But I was told that I might go 

 through the factories at any time I wanted to, and that I might take all 

 the time I wanted to. So I have been through the factories whenever I 

 have wanted to. I have been through one of them a dozen times. I have 

 got every process 5 I know every temperature that oil is subjected to; I 

 know the details of every piece of machinery; I know every churn; I 

 have seen the butter when it was put in there; I know everything 

 from A to Z. I know it sufficiently so that I was offered $5,000 for my 

 information by a man who knew that that concern was making the 

 finest kind of process butter in the country. I have been in other 

 process factories besides that one. 



Mr. SPRINGER. Have you any means to suggest by which fraud upon 

 consumers can be prevented in the sale to them of process butter when 

 they think they are buying creamery butter? 



Mr. KNIGHT. The great trouble so far has been that the chemists 

 have been unable to discern in their analyses the difference between 

 process butter and creamery butter or any other kind. Butter is but 

 ter. The same kind of casein enters into both, the same kind of fat, 

 the same kind of acid, the same amount of salt. 



Senator DOLLIVER. Are these bacteria present? 



Mr. KNIGHT. Those worms occur in everything. Bacteria is life. 

 Everything contains bacteria. Without bacteria there would be no 

 flavor in anything. This culture you talk about, the more you have the 

 better it is. Bacteria are used in the process of making process butter 

 to give it an absolutely pure flavor, notwithstanding it is oftentimes an 

 artificial flavor. It is introduced there to give a uniformed flavor; and 

 at the same time it is a mild flavor. It is nothing more nor less than 

 that. 



Mr. TOMPKINS. If the people knew that, they would have as much 

 prejudice against it as they would have against oleomargarine. 



Mr. KNIGHT. I do not think so, because all fermentation is a growth 

 of bacteria. Let me explain to you about this, gentlemen. There are 

 bacteria and bacteria, all kinds of bacteria. Bacteria are in the air. 



