1889.] PUBLIC DOCUMENT — No. 4. 245 



co-operation was practiced by the patrons ; that is, the extent 

 to which this principle was observed in its spirit. And so 

 it will be all the way throughout ; the greater the influence 

 they can exert on the individual patron, the more success 

 will there be in producing a higher quality of butter than 

 has been produced in the past. And 1 think one application 

 of co-operation in the future will be the co-operative supply 

 of a standard food, which will be prepared some day not 

 far distant by the creamery. The average creamery is able 

 to undertake the distribution of the food, and so control all 

 of its patrons in feeding and caring for their cattle. They 

 will come pretty closely on the heels of those wealthy pri- 

 vate dairymen who have been able to produce the rich butter 

 which sells at such gilt-edged prices in the markets of our 

 great cities. At the Bay State fair I was very much struck 

 by a statement of the cost of the creamery butter of New 

 England. It seems that during the year last past at least 

 one creamery in the New England States had sold its butter 

 in New York for fifty cents a pound. But the very fact that 

 creamery butter was good enough to sell for fifty cents, even 

 twice or three times, shows that there are great possibilities 

 of improvement in the production of creamery butter. Some 

 reference was made by the reader of the paper to the insinua- 

 tion that creamery butter will not keep. That is true of 

 some creamery butter, as it is true, to a very much wider 

 extent, of a large proportion of the average farm butter. 

 The ordinary butter-maker, operating a small creamery, 

 works under great disadvantages. He is very often selected 

 because he presents himself for low wages ; and he presents 

 himself for low wages, in the great majority of cases, because 

 he is not a competent butter-maker, and the butter he turns 

 out will have very close correspondence to the rate of wages 

 paid to him. So it will hold throughout. The expenses of 

 a creamery must necessarily be ratable in proportion to 

 the quantity of raw material handled. That is a law that 

 holds good in all business, in all manufocturing operations ; 

 and the creamery is no exception to the general rule. There 

 are some creameries in the West that are able to operate 

 on as low expense as two cents and two and one-quarter 

 per pound. These creameries manufacture butter at the 



