92 ILLINOIS dairymen's ASSOCIATION. 



There is no business that can stand permanently such a tax as is required 

 for cream gathering. It should be admitted, however, that this is a great 

 improvement over the old prairie system. 



It has long appeared to me tnat farmers must soon adopt the plan of con- 

 centrating interests or abandon co-operation. Four or five farmers upon 

 adjoining farms could construct a simple dairy house and manufacture their 

 butter upon the most improved methods, and fifty such farm factories could 

 employ one man as an inspector and general agent for the sale of products. 

 The inspection should cover not only quality of butter, but should include 

 cows, food, management and everything that contributes to the best results. 



Our factory friends say, " This will destroy the factory." It might dis- 

 pose of a few, but in the main present factories would be used as centres for 

 gathering and handling butter of the highest grade and upon which the larg- 

 est margins can be made by the dealer. 



In other words, cream gathering will then be changed into butter gath- 

 ering. Such centres for the collection and distribution of the products of 

 the dairy are of vital importance to the farmer. They supplement him in 

 his busy life and connect him with the great markets of the world. Without 

 such centres and a careful system of inspection it is doubtful whether the 

 scattered dairies could be kept to any standard of excelllenee. 



In addition to this and in a work requiring so much art and science, some 

 plan for dairy schools should be adopted, and I see no better way at present 

 than a winter school of from two to four weeks. I trust that at an early day . 

 the agricultural colleges may be able to provide one such school of the dairy 

 for the general farmer during the winter. 



Mr. Hibbard : I have my doubts about Mr. Knapp's plan working. I 

 saw substantially that same thing being practiced about two or three years 

 ago in Iowa. I have seen what women called marble cake, in imitation of 

 two kinds of marble, but I never saw anything that surpassed that butter for 

 variety. I went there with my brother to buyout a creamery for the Boston- 

 market. The butter never went to Boston, I am happy to say. I do not say 

 but that the plan is possible ; there is no law against it, but I am more than 

 doubtful if even three or four farmers would continue to do it year after 

 year ; I never had any experience in the creamery business, but I have had 

 a great deal of experience with men ; and while the thing may be possible, I 

 don't believe it is practicable. 



Mr. Potter : It would require just about as much apparatus to make 

 butter for four or five farmers as for fifteen. It would be very expensive. 



Mr. Buell : I have heard a plan referred to that was something like 

 this, and which was spoken of as being successful. They did this way : They 

 did their own churning and took the fresh butter to one party who worked it 

 into shape and sold it. He claimed by that process a success. That, how- 

 ever, seems to me more feasible than this other plan. 



