FEEDING FOR BUTTER. 59 



may be willing to pay fifteen cents, and in time you may 

 get up to the eighty cents, provided there are wealthy 

 people enough in Boston to take the product of JMr. Bow- 

 ditch's dairy, and my dairy, and several others, which is a 

 point yet unsettled. But real merit, in the long run, gov- 

 erns the market — not family connections, 



Mr. Sessions. I want to ask Mr. Cheever if he honestly 

 believes that his butter is woi'th double what some of the 

 butter that Franklin County sends to market is worth ? 



Mr. Cheevee. I do not, except to those who have 

 learned to appreciate it, and are willing to pay for the assur- 

 ance of a full supply at all times, and for uniformity in char- 

 acter. 



Mr. BowDiTCH. I have sold butter for more than one 

 year at forty cents a pound and less. I was a good many 

 years building up my trade, and more than once I lost half 

 a dozen of my best customers, and got a lower price for my 

 butter, because something went wrong in my dairy. It is 

 only when you have proved to a certain lot of customers 

 that you can make butter, and have it the same every churn- 

 ing you send in, every week, every month, and every year, 

 just the same, that you can establish and maintain a high 

 price. The Darlington people in West Chester, just out- 

 side of Philadelphia, sell their butter, what little is sold in 

 Boston, for twenty cents a pound more than any other but- 

 ter that I know of. It is not always so very good ; some- 

 times there are white streaks in it, but it is the fashion. I 

 have tasted it when I did not like it as well as a good deal 

 of the butter found in the Boston market. 



Question. Do you put up any winter butter? 



Mr. BowDiTCii. Yes. In the flush times, I try to make 

 as much butter as I can. When butter is plenty, I may 

 make one hundred and fifty pounds, instead of one hundred 

 pounds, and get my full price for it. The way that I have 

 kept up the price is this : My butter is retailed at a certain 

 price, and any butter that is not taken by the retail trade is 

 put into boxes, with my trade mark scratched off of thf m, 

 and not sold as my butter. 



Dr. Wakefield. It seems to me pretty hard for us 

 here, when these distinguished doctors of butter disagree so, 



