^^ Illinois State Dairymen's Association. 



had taken separately and made it into butter, had a small amount 

 of it made up with a hand churn, and he was absolutely certain 

 that butter was going to win a prize. He got a score of 92 and 

 instead of trying to find out where he made his mistake and why 

 he did not get the score which the quality of his milk encouraged 

 him to believe he should have had, he said the scoring was no 

 good, the judge did not know his business, and he dropped out. 

 I venture to say that man will enter no more contests. 



There is one thing, of course, that the buttermaker is al- 

 ways interested in, and that is the ability of the judge to score 

 the butter properly. He feels a great many times, because the 

 score of the butter judge and the score of the man who buys his 

 butter, is not the same that the judge is making a mistake. Now 

 you must remember that those two men are looking at the ques- 

 tion from a different standpoint. The butter judge, who is 

 scoring butter at a contest, is doing it in a critical manner, look- 

 ing for defects to point out to the buttermaker so he may im- 

 prove. The butter dealer in the market is looking at it from a 

 financial standpoint. If the market is firm and butter is in good 

 demand, a piece of butter which on critical inspection would not 

 score over 90, will sell readily as extra. The butter dealer of 

 course does not want to hurt the feelings of the shipper and he 

 gives him a score according to what he can really get for the but- 

 ter. If he can sell it for extras he will give him a score of 93, 

 and it is this thing which has caused so much dissatisfaction with 

 the scoring contests. The butter dealers who have given this 

 any attention will admit this fact as readily as anybody else, but 

 nevertheless, I do not think a butter judge should pay any atten- 

 tion to matters of that kind. In scoring butter, he should try 

 to strike an average of what the butter will ordinarily sell for. 

 I know there is a great difference in the market value of butter 

 at different times according to the supply of butter there is on 

 hand. At one time a piece of butter may sell as first and very 

 slowly at that, so it seems to be a hard matter to set any score 

 which will at all times represent the commercial value of butter. 



In connection with that, I might say that the butter judges 

 are learning many things from these contests. They are find- 

 ing how hard it is to go through a lot of butter twice and set the 

 same score. Butter judging is simply a matter of comparison. 

 The butter judge has a standard of some kind of butter, usually 



