ILLINOIS DAIRYMEN'S ASSOCIATION. 185 



The commercial value of dairy products is determined very largely by 

 their flavors and odors. They are usually judged by the smell which is 

 so extremely delicate that it takes but an exceedingly small amount of a 

 substance giving off a bad odor to make the product of low or inferior 

 quality. No food is more susceptible to defects or more subject to con- 

 tamination than dairy products and yet the protection of their purity until 

 they reach the consumer is nothing more nor less than cleanliness. This 

 would seem to be a simple matter yet it is one greatly neglected, but when 

 faithfully performed will more than repay the efforts made. 



Many people when handling milk seem to forget that they are deal- 

 ing with food products. There is a tendency for certain unfortunate prac- 

 tices to invade the dairy business. If filth is allowed to get into milk or it 

 becomes tainted at any point of its production, no amount of care either 

 before or after can make amends for the difficulty. A man may be careful 

 and correct in all of his dairy operations but one, and yet this one be the 

 cause of his producing a low grade product. This one mistake not only 

 injures his product but the dairy market as well. This being true, it is 

 clear that the greatest care should be exercised in every step of produc- 

 tion, manufacture, and delivery of dairy products to the consumer. Only 

 those dairymen who exercise such care can hope to secure the trade of 

 people who desire a product of superior quality and are willing to pay an 

 advanced price. 



The real foundation of the whole dairy business lies in the milk pro- 

 ducer. The chief necessity then in improving the dairy conditions is to 

 give the producer such a knowledge of the right methods of handling and 

 caring for milk that he will not only see the necessity for such methods 

 but may also know how best to accomplish this purpose. 



Some dairymen think if they do not get a good price for their milk at 

 the creamery that the fault lies with the creamery; but the patrons 

 produce the butter, the creamery only separates it. Patrons should not 

 forget that the interest of the creamery and their own are the same. 

 Dairy education has benefited creamery operators more than it has the 

 patrons. The statement was recently made by one of our best informed 

 dairy and creamery men that — " Milk does not come to the creamery in so 

 <;lean a condition today as it did twenty years ago." Before the day of 

 the separator, milk was not accepted unless it reached the creamery la 



