26 ANNUAI, BUTTER PRODUCTION 



sands of dollars, they have cast distrust and suspicion on the 

 creamery business and discouraged the business of milking cows 

 and selling cream for buttermaking. They should serve as a 

 warning to all communities contemplating the organization of co- 

 operative creameries and entertaining negotiations with cream- 

 ery promoters. Fortunately, through the efforts of the United 

 States Dairy Division, the dairy departments and dairy com- 

 missioners of many states, the country has been largely cleared 

 of the creamery promoter. Only in isolated cases, do we now 

 hear of his activities and in such cases every effort is made by 

 dairy officials to inform prospective communities of the risk 

 of their contemplated enterprise. 



Annual Butter Production in the United States. 



Government statistics show that since 1850 there has been 

 a steady and continuous increase in the annual butter output 

 in the United States. From 313,345,506 pounds in 1850 the 

 butter produced in this country increased to 1,619,415,263 pounds 

 in 1910. Up to 1870, when the total butter output amounted to 

 514,092,683 pounds, practically all the butter was produced on 

 the farm. From that time on the factory system of buttermaking 

 started its development and in 1910 only about 60 per cent of 

 the total butter output was made on the farm. Since 1910 the 

 production of butter has shifted still more rapidly from the 

 farm to the factory. This change has been especially pro- 

 nounced where the cow population is dense and where- the dairy 

 industry is most intensive, but of late years, even in states with 

 a comparatively sparse cow population and where dairying is 

 still in its infancy, owing to the ready markets for cream offered 

 by the large centralized creameries and because of the vastly 

 improved transportation facilities, factory buttermaking has 

 been greatly stimulated, vast quantities of cream are daily 

 shipped from the widely scattered farms to these creameries, 

 causing a gradual abandonment of buttermaking on the farm for 

 commercial purposes and confining farm buttermaking largely 

 to the butter needed for private and neighborhood consumption. 



