244 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Jan. 



which sold its butter at sixteen and two-thirds cents per 

 pound, because they were receiving the cream of one hun- 

 dred and sixty cows only. My friend behind me represents 

 a creamery receiving the cream of eight hundred cows. 

 Their expenses, probably, are about four cents, or four and 

 a quarter. 



Mr. Clark, It has been as low as three. 



Mr. Ceieesman. That is unusually low. I think the 

 average expense of manufacturing, cream-gathering, and 

 marketing butter produced in Xew England creameries, runs 

 about four and one-half cents to five and six-tenths, which 

 is exceedingly low. Manufacturers of dairy utensils, of 

 very much longer experience in the New England States 

 than I have had, tell me that the cost of production on 

 private dairy farms, and of marketing, is not less than eight 

 and one-half cents per pound. Here is a very wide differ- 

 ence, with this point also to be emphasized, that in creamery 

 butter you have a higher uniformity throughout, and wher- 

 ever it is placed in competition with the average farm prod- 

 uct, it invariably brings from five to six cents per pound 

 more ; so that you have the difierence in the value of the 

 product to place to the credit of the co-operative dairying, 

 added to the difference in the cost of production, which 

 varies from seven to ten cents per pound all round, — a great 

 difierence in favor of co-operative dairying. 



There seems to be remarkal^le unanimity of opinion as to 

 the value of skim milk for calf and pig feeding throughout 

 the New England States. From all the data I have been 

 able to gather, it would appear to be worth from twenty to 

 twenty-five cents per hundred pounds, or two to two and 

 one-half mills per pound. That added to the price of butter 

 makes very nearly twenty-four cents a pound, which comes 

 a little more than half way between twenty-two and one-half 

 cents, quoted from New Hampshire creameries, and twenty- 

 eight cents, which Mr. Bachelder was able to get for his 

 product. 



The success of co-operative efi'ort depends entirely on the 

 loyalty of the individual patron to the creamery. As we 

 have heard from the reader of the paper, their success has 

 been very largely due to the extent to wliicli the principle of 



