THE NATIONAL DAIRY UNION AND ITS WORK FOR 



THE PROTECTION OF PURE BUTTER AGAINST 



OLEOMARGARINE IMITATION. 



BY CHARLES Y. KNIGHT, SECRETARY OF THE NATIONAL DAIRY UNION, 

 EDITOR AND MANAGER OP CHICAGO DAIRY PRODUCE. 



Chicago . 



Farmers who sell milk to the creamery and receive pay therefor upon 

 basis of the market price of butter little realize the losses which they have 

 incurred as a result of the manufacture and sale of a mixture of lard, tal- 

 low and cottonseed oil, known as oleomargarine, but until July 1 of this 

 year almost universally sold or served as butter because of the fact that 

 it was colored in exact imitation thereof. 



In 1886 this traffic amounted to 21,513,537 Ibs.; in 1894 it had grown 

 to 69,622,246 Ibs.; in 1900 to 107,045,028 Ibs., and during the last fiscal 

 year of the existence of oleomargarine artificially colored, the make in this 

 country was 123,180,075 Ibs., equal to 2,463,615 fifty-pound tubs, over six 

 thousand car loads, or as much oleomargarine as one thousand large cream- 

 eries turn out butter. In other words, twenty-seven oleomargarine factories 

 turned out oleomargarine equal in quantity to 25 per cent, of the butter product of 

 all the creameries in the United States I 



The National Dairy Union was organized for the purpose of fighting 

 this fraud. Its officers for the past five years have been : 



PRESIDENT Ex-Gov. W. D. Hoard, of Wisconsin, editor of Hoard's 

 Dairyman. 



TREASURER Hon. H. B. Gurler, DeKalb, 111., owner of " Clover Farm," 

 author of " American Dairying," and whose entire interests are in dairying. 



SECRETARY Chas. Y. Knight, of Chicago, editor and manager of Chi- 

 cago Dairy Produce, a weekly newspaper devoted to buttermaking. 



In December, 1898, the proposition to ask Congress to place a tax of 

 10 cents per pound upon oleomargarine, colored in imitation of butter, 

 was laid before the dairymen of the country by this organization. The 

 work was immediately taken up, and, after more than three years of con- 

 stant effort, the measure was finally passed. Every buttermaker or 

 creamery manager knows what the results have been. 



Those most benefited by the work of the National Dairy Union are 

 the milkers of cows. Every cent added to the value of butter is a cent 



