ILLINOIS STATE DAIRYMEN S ASSOCIATION. 43 



5. The facilities for caring for and storing the products were 

 insufficient, and hence sales were compulsory and disadvantageous. 



6. The prices charged for manufacturing the products were too 

 high. 



7. Sending the products to commission houses to be sold, was 

 damaging. 



8. Middlemen — to whose fingers some of the proceeds, in pass- 

 ing, always adhere — were to numerous. 



I shall not dilate upon these several reasons separately. The 

 brief sketch given of the way and by whom the work at the factories 

 was done will convince dairymen of the soundness of most of these 

 reasons. As to the quantity of the products, in the absence of accu- 

 rate statistics which might and I think ought to be furnished by the 

 proprietors of factories, no definite knowledge is attainable. It is a 

 matter of grave importance to the dairyman whether 9 or 13 pounds 

 of milk were at the factory used to make a pound of cheese, and 

 whether 22J or 32 pounds of milk were consumed to make a pound 

 of butter. 



My experience, observation and conversation with proprietors 

 of factories leads me to believe that on an average not less than 13 

 pounds of milk were consumed to make a pound of cheese, and 30 

 pounds to make a pound of butter. The waste in this particular 

 alone has been large. 



In quality the products — particularly cheese — have been notori- 

 ously inferior. Skim cheese has been the make generally. This 

 cheese is made from milk divested of the cream, or most of it. To 

 this short-sighted and pernicious practice of making skim cheese I 

 attribute in a large degree the depression in the dairy business. 

 Skim cheese is unfit for human food. It was well calculated to de- 

 ceive — and has deceived the public ; it looked fair and found sales at 

 a price far in advance of its value. Proprietors of factories, commis- 

 sion men, dealers and dairymen made present money unjustly out of 

 it — the latter the least, however. Consumption of this cheese de- 

 creased with the increase of knowledge of its demerits, and now it 

 can scarcely be sold except in a market where it is supposed to be 

 good cheese. The damaging financial results do not affect wholly, as 

 it ought, those only who are engaged in manufacturing and selling it; 

 it extends much further, and in its downfall it drags not only good 

 cheese but the whole dairy interest. Unfortunately, like all wide- 



