242 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Jan. 



purchase our corn about as well as to buy it by the carload. 

 Our wheat-bran we buy in large quantities, and cotton-seed 

 in limited quantity. 



Mr. Cheesman. Do you prescribe any standard? 



Mr. Clark. No, sir. We prohibit an undue quantity of 

 cotton-seed, that is all. 



Mr. Cheesman. There are some questions I would like 

 to ask Mr. Clark, because the value of all these meetings 

 depends on the number of questions presented, and without 

 these questions it is impossible to have that interesting dis- 

 cussion which results from their presentation. One question 

 is, Do most of your patrons adhere to a temperature of forty- 

 two degrees? 



Mr. Clark. We instruct them to, and, so far as 

 our cream-gatherers are concerned, they say they are con- 

 forming to that requirement. 



Mr. Cheesman. Has the cream-gatherer power of in- 

 spection over all details ? 



Mr. Clark. Yes, sir. 



Mr. Cheesman. Do you use paper or cloth in making 

 your pound prints ? 



Mr. Clark. We use paper. 



Mr. Cheesman. How long do you set it aside? 



Mr. Clark. Sometimes, if we are crowded, we give it 

 very little time ; but if we can, half an hour or a little 

 longer. 



Mr. Cheesman. Is that sufficient? 



Mr. Clark. I suppose not strictly ; but it answers. 



Mr. Cheesman. How large are the granules ? 



Mr. Clark. Oh, we intend to stop churning when the 

 granules are about the size of a buckwheat kernel, or a little 

 finer. 



Mr. Cheesman. You must all have noticed, some time 

 last week, that a combination in Chicago, interested chiefly 

 in the manufacture and sale of oleo-butter, had organized a 

 conspiracy against creamery butter, by forcing up the price 

 to a very high figure. I think one day the quotation was forty 

 cents a pound. It seems to me, if the system of co-opera- 

 tion exists in the State of Illinois, that it is exceedingly 

 dangerous practice to permit those interested in oleo-butter 



