HISTORY AND DEVELOPMENT 25 



creamery industry and with it the entire dairy industry, has suf- 

 fered great losses and has been delayed in its progress by the 

 activities of the creamery promoter. 



Grim monuments to the activities of the creamery promoter, 

 this scavenger of the dairy business, may be found in many 

 parts of the Middle West in the form of defunct creameries. 

 Their history, regardless of location, is much the same, and 

 their careers have had a depressing and retarding influence upon 

 the rational development of the dairy industry. They failed 

 because they lacked the fundamental essentials of the success- 

 ful creamery. 



While organized under the promising name of co-operative 

 creameries, the incentive leading to their creation was not the 

 'co-operative spirit of the respective communities, but the greed 

 of unscrupulous promoters, whose alluring promises of exag- 

 gerated profits induced dairy communities to buy their ware. 

 In most cases the cow population was entirely inadequate to 

 furnish the necessary raw material to make possible profitable 

 operation, the necessary operating capital was lacking, incompe- 

 tent buttermakers made an inferior product, inexperienced man- 

 agers mismanaged the business, the frail tie of co-operation 

 between the stockholders was easily rent by unsatisfactory re- 

 turns from the market, and the inevitable result was disorganiz- 

 ation, dissolution and failure. In a few isolated cases only 

 have these creameries survived these discouraging handicaps, 

 largely on account of exceptionally favorable local conditions, 

 or of the individual and unselfish effort and ability of some one 

 person strong enough to safely guide the ship through the tur- 

 bulent waters into which the creamery was launched. In some 

 cases these creameries passed into private hands at a great 

 sacrifice to the stockholders. In the great majority of cases, 

 however, the promoters' creameries succumbed, after incurring 

 additional debts, to the natural consequences of the law of the 

 survival of the fittest. 



These defunct creameries may be counted by hundreds. 

 They have impoverished the communities in which they are 

 located, they have caused their stockholders the loss of thou- 



