16 ILLINOIS STATE DAIRYMEN'S ASSOCIATION. 



improved twenty-five per cent, in a single year by such a concert of action 

 among grocerymen as would render it impossible for a man to dispose of 

 fifth-rate butter at a second rate price, and insure to the man who would 

 make Jirst-rate butter 2i first-rate price. 



Butter that could be sold on the Elgin Board of Trade to-day for 

 thirty-three cents, would not, in the Aurora market, bring over twenty- 

 seven cents ; while some of the butter that will be sold in Aurora to-day 

 for twenty-five cents, could not be sold at all on the Board of Trade, or, if 

 sold, would not bring more than seventeen or eighteen cents. 



Now the man that makes the thirty-three cent butter loses six cents 

 per pound on his butter, and the money is given as a premium to the man 

 who makes eighteen cent butter. Then you will hear the grocerymen talk 

 loud, in a general way, (they seldom mention names,) because the people do 

 not learn to make good butter. 



If you really make a first-class article and your grocery trade is large, 

 perhaps you may succeed in getting one cent per pound above the grocery 

 market price, but the offer will always be made in a whisper, and will be 

 accompanied by the injunction to say nothing about it, as it would offend 

 Mr. B., your neighbor, who did not receive the extra cent per pound for 

 his butter. 



I repeat and emphasize the statement, that grocerymen, as a rule, do 

 not buy butter on'its merits. 



A lady of my acquaintance told me that she took butter into the 

 Aurora market which she knew to be poor butter — very poor. It was 

 made from bitter cream, and was similar in color to red chalk. Yet she 

 received for it the highest grocery market price, and the buyer even told 

 her that it was first-class butter. 



An acquaintance of mine who had been buying butter, and upon whose 

 hands quite an amount of poor butter had accumulated, disguised himself 

 as a farmer, hired a pair of mules, and took part of it into the Aurora market, 

 where, armed with a kerosene oil can and a sugar bucket, he offered it for 

 sale. The ruse was a success. He received for it several cents per pound 

 more than the butter would have brought had it been sold upon its merits. 

 He bought a gallon of kerosene and ten dollars worth of sugar. Fearing 

 to repeat the experiment upon the same ground, he hired a Swede to market 

 the remainder of the accumulated stock, who did it with nearly equal 

 success. If you make poor butter, then, take your kerosene oil can along, 

 and ask the price of butter at the corner grocery. 



But a change for the better can never be effected in this matter except 



