LLLmOIS DAIRYMEN'S ASSOCIATION. 25 



tions settled similarly to our own, it costs more per pound of butter by 50 

 per cent, in the case of the whole milk system than it does in the case of the 

 cream gathering system. I can show you case after case in Orange county 

 of men who will show you by their figures that from 50 to 80 per cent, profit 

 accrues from having the cream gathered from them, over delivering the milk 

 of the same cows to the factories themselves. We admit that we have not 

 made butter in the east from gathered cream that comes up to the whole 

 milk butter, but I believe that is largely prejudice among merchants. There 

 is another point. Our experience in the east is this, that the only way for a 

 man to keep up and improve his herd is to raise his own calves, raise his own 

 milch cows. That he can only do under the cream gathering system. To 

 have a milch cow you have got to feed your calves milk sometimes. :Nrow, 

 something has been said about the man that made $100 per cow, as if it were 

 an extravagant figure. Why, if in an Orange county milk producers' asso- 

 ciation a man should get on his feet and brag that he got $100 a head out of 

 his cows, the folks would laugh at him. I can point you to dozens of herds 

 in Orange county that would average from $95 to $125 a cow. 



Question : How much do you pay for making butter by the cream 

 gathering system. 



Answer : Usually from Si to 4i cents. We haul from twenty to twenty- 

 five miles. 



Mr. Johnson : Does your factory furnish the package, the salt and 

 . everything at that price ? ' 



Answer : We ran a factory east of the Hudson river on the strictly co- 

 operative plan. At the end of the year, as often occurs, the strict agreement 

 fell out ; it was feared there would be trouble, and our manager, who had 

 been employed as cashier, agent or treasurer of the company, joined the 

 butter maker. They put their heads together and agreed to take the con- 

 tract for the next year, and they made butter for 3i cents ; they furnished 

 everything and they made a living, because they renewed the contract at the 

 end of the year. They charged 4 cents this year, however, because they 

 found they couldn't run it for 3i cents. Let me say that when we started a 

 factory in Massachusetts, the cream gathering question came up. We tried 

 the plan of taking the cream for a week at a time from some farmers whom 

 we could depend on to make accurate returns, and we found in a very short 

 time that the gain in price and the quantity of butter produced was consid- 

 erably more in the aggregate than the whole cost ; the farmers found that 

 the factory made them 10 per cent, more butter from the same milk than 

 they were making at home. If you go through that country, the farmers 

 themselves will tell you that their cash income per cow is decidedly more 

 than it was under the old system, quite a number of dollars. 



The Convention adjourned to meet at 7:30 P. M. 



Met pursuant to adjournment at 7:30 P. M. Song—" Are ve sleeninff 

 Maggie ? " Mr. Jules G. Lumbard. ^^^'^S. 



THE ratio:n'al ration. 



BY COL. T. D. CURTIS, OF SYRACUSE, NEW YORK. 



:No Other should be given or taken. The bodies of animals and men are 

 made up of certain elements found in nature, without a due proportion of 



