ILLINOIS STATE DAIRYMEN S ASSOCIATION. 3/ 



easily and profitably abandoned in the West. With the 

 expensive feed and long winters of the East, they can never 

 compete with us in the manufacture of butter and cheese in 

 winter. And now, as the tastes of the world are for strictly 

 fresh goods, we find, in order to supply this growing 

 demand, we must milk more in the winter months ; and 

 when we consider the fact that the West must fill this 

 demand for at least one-half of the year, we are insured a 

 profitable outlet for all we can make. Our past experience 

 in winter dairying is, we think, convincing enough that the 

 winter months are the months to make the heft of our 

 goods, thus helping to equalize the markets of the world. 

 We believe that it is more from the force of habits inherited 

 from the East than any thing else that the West, as a whole, 

 is clinging so close to summer milking. 



Second, we mention the oft-repeated feet that we must 

 make our goods better. Much of our summer product is 

 made worthless through the carelessness and incompetency 

 of butter-makers and cheese-makers ; and we think that, 

 since the abandonment of buying milk at the factories, poor 

 goods are on the increase. Manufacturers should be held 

 strictly responsible for all goods made from milk entrusted 

 to their care. 



Our curing rooms for cheese, in the main, are greatly 

 at fault. Most curing rooms are built by only siding up 

 the outside and plastering the inside. These rooms 

 neither resist heat nor cold. In two of the factories under 

 our charge the curing rooms are built as follows : First, they 

 are sheeted with good lumber on outside of studding ; then 

 furred out and sided ; then furred out between studding on 

 the inside and papered with good building paper; then 

 furred out and lathed and plastered between studs ; then 

 lathed and plastered again outside of all, making four dead- 

 air spaces. In these rooms cheese will keep their flavor, if 

 well made, from four to six weeks longer than in rooms 

 built in the old way. In a business of 5,000 pounds of 

 milk daily these rooms will save the extra expense of 

 building each month, for four of the summer months. 



Our butter must be made better. There are many 

 things in the summer months at war with us in our attempt 

 to make good keeping butter. It requires the greatest 

 vigilance to keep our factories in condition so that our 

 cream may raise in a sweet atmosphere ; and this is made 



