272 THE dairyman's MAJ^rUAL. 



up to this point, may haye been secured, yet a lapse in 

 this will spoil all, and previous success be obliterated. 



In the management of a public dairy or creamery, 

 where cream is purchased of numerous patrons, some 

 test of quality is required for the mterest of the purchaser. 

 There has always been a difficulty in the way of intro- - 

 ducing creameries into new and desirable localities, be- 

 cause of the impossibility of making a just division of 

 the proceeds among the patrons. We have seen how 

 cream varies in quality and contents of fat, and how 

 some cows' milk is more productive than that of others. 

 But in the creamery all the cream is taken by measure, 

 and heretofore there has been no precise or satisfactory 

 method of determining the actual value of the cream 

 taken in, for the yield of butter. Every patron cast into 

 the pool, as it were, so much weight of coin, gold, silver, 

 nickel or copper, and each received the same pay for the 

 tveight only of his contribution. This glaring mjustice 

 has been resisted by the dairymen who keep Jersey or 

 Guernsey cows, or improved and costly animals, and 

 who feed them high for the sake of the profit. Hence 

 it has long been the aim of owners of creameries and 

 of manufacturers of creamery supplies to find some 

 means of equalizing the amount of pay with the actual 

 amount of butter in the cream gathered. After many 

 attempts the so-called *'oil test" has been adopted. 



This ^'oil test" is simply the actual churning of a 

 sample of the cream gathered from each dairy, so as to 

 ascertain by this practical test the quantity of fat con- 

 tained in the cream. Each patron skims his own cream 

 and prepares it for the collector. He may safely skim it 

 quite close and take the thickest cream, or he may, if 

 so immorally disposed, put in as much milk or water as 

 he wishes, to thin it and make it measure more. It is 

 all the same to the cream gatherer. He takes the cream, 

 pours it into his own measuring can and notes in his forms 



