ILLINOIS STATE DAIRYMEN'S ASSOCIATION. 171 



theory is carried out in the practical, becomes apparent upon an 

 examination of our daily market quotations, which show the 

 amount and grade as well of stock daily sold at prices ranging 

 from $2 to $6 per hundred, from which it is easy to ascertain the 

 per cent, of canner's stock and of export. So also the number 

 of pounds of butter daily sold on our markets, as grease and 

 packing stock, and at less than 10 cents per pound, shows a 

 wonderful neglect of theory in practice. 



This neglect is further shown by setting milk for raising 

 cream in living or cooking rooms, where smoking is frequently 

 tolerated, by storing in open vessels, in dingy, mouldy and poorly 

 ventilated cellars and in close proximity to decaying vegetables ; 

 by tolerating it to remain in shiftless milk houses without 

 ventilation or drainage and surrounded by wallows, filth or 

 garbage; by substituting oil barrels sawed in two for tanks and 

 allowing water to become warm and stagnant, or by trusting to 

 an opportune shade tree for protection from the scorching rays 

 of the sun, at least part of the day. This neglect stands as the 

 greatest menace to the profitable operation of the creamery 

 using gathered cream. As is the cream we buy so will be the 

 product we sell, and though fortunes have been expended, time 

 wasted and patience exhausted, yet no ''doctoring" has yet 

 been able to produce " gilt-edge " from tainted cream, and never 

 will. 



My experience in this business dates back to 1881, and may 

 be thus related: Having formed a partneship with our worthy 

 president we formulated a theory of operation with the motto 

 "Excelsior" written over the doors of our factory and a deter- 

 mination to make none but first-class goods and handsome 

 profits. Creamery men, then old in the business, informed us 

 that our theory was too fine, and our standard too high ; that 

 they had, and we would soon discover, a tendency to wo.rk for 

 quantity at the expense of quality ; that there have been tenden- 

 cies to verify such prediction is too apparent to be denied. 



At first we operated by having our gatherers do the skim- 

 ming, gathered cream daily and bought by the inch, allowing 



