22 ILLINOIS DAIRYMEN'S ASSOCIATION. 



be secured within a reasonable radius, the case might be altogether altered, 

 and it would depend there, I think, largely upon how the farmers were dis- 

 posed. My impression has always been that where abundance of milk could 

 be secured, quite as satisfactory results could be obtained by gathering the 

 milk as by gathering the cream, and this applies particularly to our State. 

 Where it is necessary to cover a large territory, why, the cream gathering 

 system, it seems to me, is a better way ; it has gained a footUold here in the 

 west, and it has come to stay, in all localities similar to those I have 

 described. 



W. W. CoLTON, of St. Charles : There are gentlemen here who prob- 

 ably can tell us the amount of money there is in this. How much per cow 

 does it average to the factory man when he gathers his cream in this way ? 



Mr. Buell : I cannot answer tnat question. I would simply say this, 

 that in my locality the cream is increasing, and the industry of the farmers is 

 tending in that direction quite decidedly. Of course no creamery man will 

 continue to run a creamery unless he gets fair returns from it. I think this 

 argument has some force in it— the industry is holding its own and in- 

 creasing. 



Secretary McGlincy : A farmer at Clarence, Iowa, stated that he was 

 receiving $28 per cow for cream. He valued the calf at a year old at $15. 



Mr. CoijTON : I have a friend who was looking over my books, and he 

 asked me, '' How much do your cows average V " I told him. " Well, now, 

 is that true ? " 1 says, ''Yes, it is so much from the factory; the other stuff 

 has nothing to do with it." He says, "My cows average me, and they come 

 round and take the cream, $18 a head." This man's name is Roe ; lives in 

 Whiteside county. 



Mr, Buell: This may be all true ; I presume this gentleman lives within 

 the limiis of the Elgin Board of Trade, and enjoys all the advantages of it. 

 That fact, and the fact that he probsbly lives in a locality where a large 

 amount of milk is produced, are circumstances which enable a factory in 

 all seasons to produce the very best quality of butter, and to sell it on the 

 Board of Trade, besides, which is usually from one to three cents above Chi- 

 cago. I desire to pay the Board all the compliment it deserves, and, I think, 

 it is entitled to a good deal. Taking these facts into account, and the fact of 

 the enthusiasm of the farmers of that vicnity in the care and feeding of their 

 stock— for this man's cows in Whiteside, probably, are under the straw 

 stacks for shelter in winter— there is a great difference. I am paying to-day 

 28 cents for cream, and consider myself lucky if my cream holds out. I can 

 get as much out of that cream as a man can at home, surely, and I give him 

 within four to six cents of what he would get if he made his butter at home 

 and took it to the store. Yes, my teams have sometimes been out a whole 

 day and brought in less than one hundred inches of cream. I know I can do 

 a great deal better for them than they can do for themselves, with the same 

 material, selling it for dairy butter, but I have to take them as I find them. 



Mr. Broomell: What can be done in Kane county and in the region 

 tributary to Elgin— the region of which Elgin is the center— in regard to re- 

 ceiving profits from the cow can be done just as well in Whiteside 

 county. That is one of the great objects, I consider, of these conventions, to 

 try to move the milk-producing population in that direction, instead of al- * 



