CHAPTER XXVIL. 
BUYING AND SELLING ON THE BUTTER FAT BASIS. 
Milk and cream should be bought and sold on the 
basis of the amount of butter fat contained in them, 
whether made into butter and cheese, or sold as milk, 
cream and ice cream. In butter making it would be 
considered absurd now-a-days to pay for milk and cream 
on any basis other than the fat basis, because the yield 
of butter is proportional to the amount of butter fat used. 
In the case of market milk and cream, the same num- 
ber of quarts are obtained per hundred pounds regard- 
less of the quality of the milk and cream; consequently 
milk dealers have found the quality basis of less im- 
portance in their business than butter makers have found 
it in theirs. So far as consumers are concerned, however, 
the quality basis counts the same in market milk as in 
butter making, because the food value of milk is ap- 
proximately proportional to the per cent of fat contained 
in it. 
Quality and the Producer. Paying for milk by the 
can or hundred, irrespective of its fat content except 
that it must not fall below a certain minimum, has a 
demoralizing effect on producers. Under such conditions 
the moment a farmer changes from the creamery or 
cheese factory where he has been paid on the quality 
basis, he begins to look for cows which produce large 
yields but a relatively poor quality of milk. A change 
of individual cows, and, as often happens, a complete 
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