38 ILLINOIS STATE DAIRYMEN's ASSOCIATION. 



more difficult from its close proximity to the cheese-making 

 room. Let us so control matters that our milk, whilst 

 setting for cream, shall be in a clear, sweet room, and, 

 when this is done, followed by all ' the requisites of good 

 butter-making, we will have butter that will keep a 

 reasonable length of time and still meet the requirements 

 of the trade. When made, we should at once make up our 

 minds whether we want to put it upon the market at the 

 ruling prices, or hold it for better. If to be sold, get it into 

 the market just as soon as possible. Sell at what you would 

 consider a low figure, at home, rather than put it into a hot 

 car to go a long distance to the place of your commission 

 man, exposed to delays and heat between cars and 

 store — "alll at your risk," — and after being received in store 

 not cared for in a proper manner, — for but few mortals will 

 care for the goods of others as though they were their 

 own. If we should think it better to hold for better prices, 

 put it into the nearest cool, clean, dry cellar, with good 

 strong brine covering top ; preferring this to the damage 

 incurred in transit and the expense of what, in many 

 instances, proves to be worthies, damp, cold storage. 



Then again, it seems to us that we have fallen into a 

 system of marketing our butter and cheese which if per- 

 sisted in will work ruin to this industry. Chicago is our 

 natural distributing point, and its commission men, recog- 

 nizing this fact, have taken advantage of it and entered into 

 combinations compelling the manufacturers to commission 

 their goods ; and so well are these combinations held 

 together that we can never sell outright unless there is more 

 to be made for them. The time was when the keeper of 

 the cows sold his milk to the manufacturer and the 

 manufacturer sold his goods to the dealer, but now the 

 producer of the milk commissions his product to the man- 

 ufacturer, and the manufacturer commissions the goods to 

 Chicago dealers, and Chicago dealers commission the goods 

 to dealers in New York, and the dealers in New York 

 commission them to parties in Liverpool or Glasgow ; and 

 all the breakage, leakage, shrinkage, freight, cartage, and 

 the three or four commissions, come out of the producer of 

 the milk — and no wonder small dividends follow. If we 

 are to consign our goods, let us get just as near the con- 

 sumer as possible. The time has come when any man of 

 common intelligence can open a correspondence with good 



