AGRICULTURE, LABOR AND INDUSTRY 17 



from the collection of a license fee, the act remains a dead letter. It 

 should be further amended to provide that weekly reports shall be 

 mad by private agencies to the administering office. 



'Proceeding under that section of the lavi^ charging this division 

 with the enforcement of "all the laws relating to (among others) the 

 protection of employees,' this division has endeavored to assist in the 

 adjudication of disputed wage claims. The efforts have not been suc- 

 cessful. Claims aggregating $5,822.22 have been presented on which 

 settlements aggregating only $329 were made. Many of the claims 

 were just ones. Most of the claimants belong to the migratory class. 



REVIEW OF DAIRY ACTIVITIES 



In reviewing the progress of dairy farming and the manufacture 

 of dairy products in Montana during the year 1922, the results are not 

 satisfactory. Compared with the progress which many other states are 

 making in dairy production and methods, Montana is drifting farther 

 behind every year. 



In 1921 there was produced in Montana 7,464,679 pounds of cream- 

 ery butter, and 158,599 pounds of cheese in factories. A full report 

 from the creameries and cheese factories will not be received for 

 several weeks; but if the production of butter shows an increase, it 

 will not be large and the production of cheese will show a net loss. 

 Owing to unsatisfactory prices in many parts of Montana, a large 

 amount of cream has been shipped out of the state. This practice is 

 on the increase. Conditions are not right when cream is shipped more 

 than 500 miles to points outside of the state in baggage cars without 

 refrigeration or proper storage facilities. Montana with an area suit- 

 able for dairying totaling more than several of the eastern states put 

 together, in 1920 was twenty-fourth in the production of creamery 

 butter, thirty-seventh in ice cream and twenty-first in cheese. The 

 third largest state in the Union, with all its natural advantages, Mon- 

 tana is surpassed in dairying by a state the size of Tennessee, which 

 made no pretentions to dairying five years ago. 



Improvement will follow if we change the methods of gathering 

 and handling the cream from which the butter is made. It is useless 

 to try to stimulate a larger production of low grade cream. There is 

 already too much of that kind. We need some constructive work done 

 in the way of producing good cream and then in properly handling 

 that cream. We need a system of paying for cream which will return 

 to the producer pay for the extra work and attention which he must 

 give to the production of high class cream. 



The Division of Dairying through two men made a complete sur- 

 vey of all of the creameries and cream buying stations in the state, 

 to get accurate information regarding the general condition of the 

 places where dairy products are bought and handled; methods of con- 

 ducting the Babcock test to determine the butterfat content of cream 

 bought; to check up previous tests, compare them with the tests made 

 at the time and get the prices paid at all of the creameries and sta- 

 tions, for comparison. This is the first time work of this kind has 

 ever been systematically done covering the whole state. 



It was found in many places that no difference in price was paid 

 at the stations, between the best cream and the poorest. This was 

 particularly true in some places where the local creameries were try- 

 ing to grade and were making an honest effort to encourage the pro- 

 duction of better cream by paying more for it than for cream of poor 

 quality. In places where the stations pay one price for all, the com- 

 petition which they offer of course causes one of two things to happen 

 — either the creameries must discontinue grading, or close up. It was 

 found in the majority of stations that not enough attention was paid 

 to the methods of testing, to secure an accurate test. Many of the 



