No. 4.] ORGANIZED EFFORT. 31 



room of the country store that by courtesy is sometimes 

 called butter is not only unfavorable to the public good, but 

 in the long run not favorable to butter itself. I do not say 

 that the makers of butterine and other substitutes should be 

 permitted to sell their products as butter, but such a thing was 

 possible only in the presence of so much poor butter dumped 

 upon an undeveloped market with nobody to vouch for its 

 pedigree. 



It is to be remembered that when we buy a box of exchange 

 fruit, every apple or orange is what it pretends to be and what 

 the label says it is. That is the chief reason why you eastern 

 consumers often pay 5 and sometimes 10 cents apiece for 

 Hood River apples. We raise as good apples as these in 

 Illinois, but we do not pack them that way, nor has butter 

 been handled on that plan. 



It was aggressive and not protective measures that were 

 needed a decade ago, and are needed yet, in the butter busi- 

 ness ; and everything that offends or disturbs the public sense 

 about butter, or about anything that looks like or is used for 

 butter, directly and indefinitely injures the price and the 

 demand for the genuine article. 



I call your attention to another agricultural situation that is 

 little short of pathetic, and which, because of its lack of organ- 

 ization, has never yet been put upon a business basis. I refer 

 to the certification and sale of improved live stock for breed- 

 ing purposes. Associations for most of the breeds exist, it is 

 true, but what do they do ? Receive and record pedigrees 

 which in substance assert the sex, age and ownership of the 

 animal, and state that its blood is not mixed. But the asso- 

 ciation guarantees nothing as to the quality of the individual, 

 nor does it touch the selling end of the business, or even give 

 information on which the prospective buyer may base an 

 opinion. For this he must go to records of sales and show- 

 rings, and to all sorts of unauthorized sources, for the infor- 

 mation which he needs in order to make an intelligent pur- 

 chase. Much of the traditional history of not a few 

 famous animals is little else than the idle gossip of herdsmen 

 and stable boys. AVhat an unsubstantial basis for values in 

 an important business ! 



