870 THE PEOPLE'S FARM AND STOCK CYCLOPEDIA. 



Supply Houses. The furnishing and equipment of facto- 

 ries and creameries was once the province of local tin-smiths 

 and machinists, but the business has been made a specialty by 

 several great manufacturing firms, and the best method in erect- 

 ing a factory or creamery is to invite from them proposals to 

 furnish the supplies ; and they knowing the exact needs, will 

 make far better terms than can be secured by any other plan. 



The Exclusive Creamery. The erection of cream gath- 

 ering butter factories all over the country, and at the rate of 

 nearly six hundred per year, has elevated this special class of 

 dairying to a most prominent place, and it is a most popular 

 specialty. In the essential features of organization these cream- 

 eries do not materially differ from plans detailed in previous 

 pages, except in this, that the cream gathering plan is especially 

 adapted for dairying in new sections, or where factories are not 

 common. The making of cheese supposes the patronage of at 

 least five hundred cows within a radius of three miles, but with 

 cream gathering, the bulk and weight of freightage is reduced 

 to about one-twelfth of the milk total of a cheese factory. The 

 cream gathering can thus be extended over a very large terri- 

 tory, and as dispatch is not so necessary as when milk is taken, 

 the cream gatherer may extend his route over twenty miles and 

 collect the cream of at least two hundred cows daily. 



The General Plan. The most common plan pursued by 

 the patrons of this system, is for some one to erect and equip 

 the factory, and buy and collect the cream, paying a stipulated 

 price per inch for the same, an inch of cream being a basis of 

 calculation for one pound of butter. An inch of cream is the 

 depth rising on a can of certain diameter, 113 cubic inches in 

 amount being taken to make one pound of butter. This is not 

 perfectly accurate, for one inch of cream from well-fed, high- 

 grade cows, will make twenty ounces of butter, while another 

 dairy will produce cream so poor that is, the caseine element 

 so predominating that a like amount of cream will not make 

 over twelve ounces. 



The plan of gathering is as follows : All the patrons are pro- 

 vided with milk-cans of one make, " Standard," " Fairlamb," 



