116 ILLINOIS STATE DAIRYMEN'S ASSOCIATION. 



In approaching the subject of "checking up" creamery 

 records, let us understand that we do not intend to advocate or 

 outline any particular form of testing or attempt to make any 

 fixed standard which would be suitable to all conditions. That 

 is, I do not mean to say that daily samples or that composite 

 samples should be used in all cases as a basis for payment. This 

 is a question that every man must settle for himself with the in- 

 formation he has at hand. In this connection, I merely desire 

 to show that by adopting certain methods the creameryman has 

 the situation within his own grasp and is able to find out for 

 himself exactly how he stands for any given period of time. 



In beginning any checking operation we must first have an 

 accurate weight of the cream as it is delivered. Then it is possi- 

 ble, if not desirable, to find the amount of butter fat delivered 

 by each patron and the sum of these deliveries will represent 

 the amount of butter fat delivered for that day. If the cream 

 is put into one or two ripening vats, a composite sample from the 

 cream weighed into the churn will be our first check on the ac- 

 curacy of the individual tests. That is, the sum of the fat from 

 the individual tests should equal the butter fat in the vat, minus 

 whatever losses there may have been in transfer and skimming, 

 provided part of the product has been taken in in the form of 

 whole milk. This check, it is true, is often not only inconveni- 

 ent, but even almost impossible to obtain, since it involves the 

 transferring of large amounts of cream in comparatively small 

 vessels, yet we find such a check not only desirable, but most 

 essential where we wish to find where certain losses really occur. 



It has been the usual custom to drop the checking at this 

 point, but if our cream is made into butter why not carry the 

 comparison one step further and compare butter fat paid for 

 with butter fat recovered in the butter? This will give us the 

 total loss in handling and the intermediate checks will serve to 

 tell where these losses occur. That is, butter fat in the ripening 

 vat is equal to butter fat in the butter, minus losses in churning, 

 and butter fat paid for should equal butter fat in butter, minus 

 total mechanical loss, plus a legal error in testing. Since these 



