THE: OVERRUN 395 



paying the patrons for butterfat. The overrun, therefore, log- 

 ically and rightfully belongs to the creamery. 



If the dairy farmer makes butter on the farm, the overrun 

 he makes compensates him for his trouble, time, labor and 

 expense involved in making and selling the butter. 



The Theoretical Overrun. The theoretical overrun is a 

 ''pencil" overrun. It aims to indicate the maximum amount of 

 butter that could be legitimately made from a given amount of 

 butterfat, if all conditions of butter manufacture could be con- 

 trolled with mathematical accuracy. 



The theoretical overrun shows, for example that, if there 

 were no mechanical losses and if butter contained exactly 80 per 

 cent of fat, the maximum amount of butter that could be made 



100 

 from 100 pounds of fat would be -57 X 100 = 125 pounds and 



. oU 



that, therefore, the maximum legitimate overrun is limited to 

 125 100 25 per cent. 



In the commercial operation of the cream, however, it is a 

 mechanical impossibility to establish the degree of accuracy that 

 is assumed in the calculation of the theoretical overrun. No such 

 standard of accuracy can be attained. For this reason the figures 

 resulting from calculation of the theoretical overrun cannot serve 

 as an acceptable standard for overrun. They fail to take into 

 consideration the true possibilities and limitations of the overrun 

 and they are prone to prove confusing and misleading. At best 

 they can serve only as an approximate and arbitrary illustration 

 for the elementary information of the layman. 



The Actual Overrun. The actual overrun shows the differ- 

 ence between the actual amount of butter churned out and the 

 amount of butterfat bought and paid for. It is affected by a 

 multitude of factors, which control, directly or indirectly, the 

 determination of the amount of butterfat bought and churned 

 and the amount of butter made. 



Conditions Influencing the Overrun. As previously stated, 

 the overrun is made possible by the fact that butter contains, 

 in addition to the butterfat, water, curd, salt and ash. The 

 larger the sum total of these non-fatty constituents, the smaller 



