No. 4.] REPORT OF DAIRY BUREAU. 317 



season of the year. The work will be pushed as fast as pos- 

 sible. 



" It is often said that when food supplies are prepared in 

 large quantities, the work is necessarily done under con- 

 ditions which are not particularly appetizing, and that peace 

 of mind would be promoted by eating what is set before 

 us — asking no questions. This is not true so far as cream- 

 ery butter making in Massachusetts is concerned. With 

 possibly two exceptions, all the creameries visited were 

 found so sweet and clean as to add zest to the readiness with 

 which their product could be eaten. 



" Some statistics for the creameries visited are as follows 

 for the months of November and December : — 



1. Pounds manufactured per day — from 80 to 600. 



2. Wholesale prices, delivered — from 28 to 34 cents. 



3. Spaces of cream to pound of butter — from 5.70 to 6.80 



4. Fat in buttermilk — from only a trace to 0.3 per cent. 



5. Fat in cream — from 13.2 to 15.85 per cent. 



6. Travel of cream gatherers — from 10 to 45 miles. 



" The butter is sold largely in towns or cities near the place 

 of manufacturing ; some of the creameries in the western 

 part of the State report a growing demand from New York 

 city for unsalted butter. All of the creameries seemed to be 

 doing well, with a brisk demand for all the butter they could 

 make. The ratio of miles of travel to number of patrons is 

 an important factor in the success of the creamery. One 

 reported twenty miles travel for fourteen patrons ; another 

 twenty miles for twenty ; and another twenty miles for 

 thirty-two. The expense in each case would be the same, 

 but in the one case it would be shared by fourteen persons 

 and in another by thirty-two persons. To each of the latter 

 it would be less than one-half what it would be in the for- 

 mer case : a suggestive point of the value of co-operation 

 and the need of its being thorough to be most effective. 

 The highest cost of making butter reported was eight cents 

 per pound. The creamery reporting the most number of 

 spaces of cream per pound of butter explained the fact by 

 saying that none of the farmers were feeding grain and 

 many of their cows were nibbling on frosty grass during the 

 middle of the day ; but coupled with this is the strange fact 



