288 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



been in the neighborhood of four cents. The experience of 

 creameries in this State, in New England and further west, 

 has been that butter can be made, on the average, for less 

 than four cents per pound. It is true that a weak creamery, 

 which has certain expenses that are just as much as those of 

 a larger and stronger one, may run its expenses up so that it 

 will cost five, five and a half or six cents a pound to make its 

 butter ; but, as a rule, a creamery well managed and strong 

 enough to be prosperous can be so conducted that, if we 

 take, for instance, the cream-gathering system, the cream 

 can be taken from the farmer's dairy without any expense to 

 him after his milk has been set for creaming, carried to the 

 factory, the butter made, salted, packed, taken to market 

 and sold for four cents or less per pound. Therefore, it is 

 a safe statement to make, that by the creamery S3'stem the 

 butter from a hundred cows, scattered, if you please, upon 

 ten or twenty farms in this neighborhood, may be made and 

 put into market and as much money returned to the owners 

 of those cows in the course of the year, without any labor 

 to those owners after the milk has been set for the cream to 

 separate, as if the owners, in the present or old-fashioned sys- 

 tem of dairy butter-making, did all the work and took all 

 the trouble, pains and expense of making their own butter. 

 This has been the actual experience in many places where 

 the creamery system has been adopted, and especially the 

 cream-gathering system, which point I suppose I need not 

 stop to explain or enlarge upon. 



Now this seems to justify the substitution of one system 

 for the other. If we can get as much money from our prod- 

 uct by adopting a new system as by following the old, and 

 rid ourselves, our homes and families of all the labor of 

 making butter, it certainly does seem worth while to do it. 

 Of course I am speaking of the average result. 



When I talk in this way, the probability is I am talking 

 to persons who believe in creameries, or to men who have 

 enterprise enough to make a special market and get a good 

 price for their product. The persons who need most to be 

 informed on this subject do not hear me. The creamery sys- 

 tem, in substitution for the dairy system, is not a benefit to 

 those who are on the top of the market, but to the average 



