376 EEPOKT OF THE BUEEAU OF ANIMAL INDUSTRY. 



board of directors, who run the business by means of a business mana- 

 ger or superintendent and butter-maker, with such assistance as may 

 be required. After paying the annual running expenses and usually 

 laying aside a quarter of a cent per pound additional with which to cre- 

 ate a reserve fund to meet extra expenses, the entire balance of the 

 receipts is paid to the patrons. The expenses include 5 or 6 per cent, 

 per annum on the capital invested in the factory, but this is the only 

 financial advantage tne patrons who are stockholders enjoy over those 

 who are not share-owners. The capital required varies from $2,000 

 to $4,000, about $3,000 being the average capital of our co-operative, 

 creamery companies. Where the site is given and much of the work 

 of construction and grading voluntary, the expense of starting is 

 less. These creameries have been so successful as to multiply rapidly 

 during the past half dozen years, until there are about one hundred 

 and fifty where there were none eight years ago. When the conserva- 

 tive nature of the New England farmer is remembered it will be seen 

 that associated dairying must have survived severe tests to come into 

 such general use and increasing popularity. It is not too much to say 

 that the system is fast revolutionizing New England daijying. 



The Amherst Co-operative Creamery, whose factory is located in 

 Hampshire County, Mass., is an excellent type of these institutions. 

 It started in 1882, amid the distrust and disadvantages common to 

 any undertaking wholly new to farmers who have had no experience 

 in co-operation. The original capital was $3,000, which built and 

 equipped an excellent factory, but, after several years, difficulty was 

 experienced in securing perfect drainage, and it became necessary to 

 build a new factory. This change has involved considerable extra 

 expense, and is an exceedingly valuable object lesson to all cream- 

 eries. Absolutely perfect drainage and pure water are the first 

 requisites to a successful butter factory. Each patron is supplied 

 with a Cooley creamer, the water in which has to be kept at a certain 

 temperature, so that as the milk is submerged (that is, the can, cover 



away with the great ineqi 

 were set in a variety of cans, and makes all feel that they are equally 

 paid. To preserve the proper temperature in summer ice is used in 

 the creameries, so that every patron must have an ice-house. This 

 was at first regarded as a hardship, but after one summer's experi- 

 ence with plenty of ice no farmer's family can do without it. The 

 creamery has been a blessing, by compelling farmers to provide ice, 

 as well as by wholly relieving the household of the drudgery of but- 

 ter making, to say nothing of the work of marketing, low prices, 

 "store-pay," a poor product, and all the disadvantages of butter 

 making on the average farm. 



The cream-gatherer from the factory goes his rounds daily (some- 

 times only three times a week in bad winter weather, the patrons 

 being allowed to skim the alternate days^ and keep the cream sub- 

 merged until the gatherers call for it), skimming the cream from the 

 cans, so that all the farmer has to do is to milk his cows, strain the 

 milk into the cans and wash them after the cream-gatherer has de- 

 parted; all the rest of the labor is performed at the factory. When 

 the gatherer arrives at the creamery he unloads his cans on the rear 

 platform. They are carried into the receiving-room and the con- 

 tents poured through strainers into the cream-tempering vats below. 

 These vats and the room in which they are placed are so constructed 



