THE NEW EARTH 



might prevail, the milk was credited up to 

 each member not by amount but by quality, — 

 the Babcock milk test enabling the manager 

 of the creamery to determine just how much 

 butter-fat there was in each farmer's supply. 

 Usually a sinking-fund was provided for con- 

 tingencies, including repairs and the like, usu- 

 ally five cents for every hundred pounds of 

 milk taken in. Should there be a dishonest 

 farmer in the lot, guilty of watering his milk, 

 or otherwise adulterating it, provision was 

 made for a fine of ten dollars for the first 

 offense, twenty-five dollars for the second, and 

 expulsion for the third. At regular, and fre- 

 quent intervals the farmers received their pay 

 for the milk turned in, so that there was no 

 danger of the accumulation of any tempting 

 surplus. Having complete control of the 

 creamery themselves, fraud was practically 

 an impossibility. 



The growth of the movement was rapid. 

 At the end of the first ten years, about the 

 year 1898, the business of the cooperative 

 creameries in the central West, inclusive of 

 such states as Minnesota, Wisconsin, Iowa and 

 Illinois, the ones most largely interested in the 



S92 



