OLEOMARGARINE. 665 



There will be a marked increase of "molasses" and such articles 

 apparently consumed by the farmers, but which are in reality lard oil, 

 neutral oil, cotton-seed oil, or oleo oil, which the farmers will take to 

 their homes to manufacture into "genuine butter," so called. There 

 will be a decreased amount of country tallow and lard brought to the 

 markets, for farmers will sell to each other to use in increasing their 

 yield of butter from their small dairy herd. There will, no doubt, be 

 propagated new breeds of so-called butter cows that will excel in the 

 production of butter the Jerseys and other famous breeds. The limit 

 in the production of butter from any one dairy will be regulated only 

 by the supply of neutral oil, lard oil, etc., that the farmer can smuggle 

 to his home. Farmers will become as skillful in evading these laws as 

 the western North Carolinian is in evading the liquor laws. Increase the 

 tax on whisky to $2 per gallon, and then see how many more men all 

 over the United States will be making "moonshine" goods. Reduce 

 the tax to 25 cents per gallon and you will reduce the number of cases 

 before each United States criminal court in North Carolina to probably 

 one-tenth the present number. If the proposed laws to impose 10 cents 

 per pound tax on oleomargarine are enacted you will have to increase 

 the revenue detective service many times its present number and hold 

 criminal United States courts every week in every district. Butterine 

 or oleomargarine will be produced, and the laws will not prevent it. 

 The proposed laws, if passed, will prevent open, aboveboard, tax- 

 paying, honorable manufacturers from continuing to carry on their 

 present business, but it will not prevent the secret manufacture of the 

 article by a class of men hard to detect and still harder to convict. 



We earnestly protest against the passage of the proposed bills as 

 being unnecessary and very harmful to our business, to the country's 

 business at large, and to the morals of many farmers and others. It 

 will be a temptation that a great many present law-abiding, honorable 

 farmers will not be able to resist, and they will become the same as a 

 great many western North Carolinians, "moonshiners," for the manu- 

 facture of oleomargarine. 



The cotton-seed-oil interests of the South have invested in plants not 

 less than $50,000,000. The working capital necessary to conduct the 

 business is not less than $50,000,000 more, making $100,000,000 

 employed in the business. The mills have converted a product, namely, 

 cotton seed, which was once considered a perfect nuisance by the 

 farmers and ginners, into an article bringing to the cotton planter 

 millions of dollars and to the laboring man millions more and to the 

 railroads a large and profitable tonnage in and out, amounting to 

 millions of dollars in freight. There has been paid to the cotton pro- 

 ducers this season not less than $40,000,000 for about two-fifths of the 

 seed produced. There has been paid to the railroads to haul the seed 

 in and the products of oil mills out not less than $15,000,000. There 

 has been paid to laborers dependent upon the manufacture of cotton 

 seed at least $10,000,000, making a grand total paid out by the oil 

 mills of not less than $65,000,000, and this for a product that forty 

 years ago was considered absolutely worthless, and for only two-fifths 

 of the seed produced, the balance being used on the farms for fertil- 

 izing and for cattle feed. 



If the oil mills are not crippled by adverse legislation in this coun- 

 try and others it is only a matter of time when all cotton seed not 

 required for planting will be worked up in oil mills, creating a market 

 value for the seed, money paid out for transportation and labor, from a 

 crop of 12,000,000 bales of cotton, a grand total amounting to at least 



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