54 ILLINOIS STATE DAIRYMEN'S ASSOCIATION. 



some one report that an unprofitable cow has been disposed of, and to 

 know that such an animal is no longer being bought and sold among 

 creamery .patrons. 



The lack of exact knowledge regarding the annual production of 

 each cow in a creamery patron's herd is in some cases rather surpris- 

 ing. It often happens that the cows are milked and fed in the same 

 routine way every year, and if the ( heck form the creamery is not large 

 enough to suit the patron — and it never is — then a great many com- 

 plaints are heard about the price of butter, or the cost of feed, and very 

 little if any effort is made to find out whether or not the cows are what 

 they should be. 



An illustration or two will serve to show the extent to which some 

 creamery patrons make an effort to think, or how well informed they 

 are, about their cows and their business affairs. I once asked a farmer, 

 who was bringing milk to the creamery, what breed o? cows he kept, 

 and he said, "Oh, I don't know, I guess they are Poland China cows." 

 Another patron, who was drawing bis own and some of the neighbor's 

 milk to the factory, came to see me one day about the price he was 

 receiving for his work. He said he had come to the conclusion 

 that he could not afford to make the trip unless he was paid a 

 dollar and a half a day; I asked him what he was getting and 

 he said he didn't know, but it wasn't enough. I looked up the record 

 showing how much he had received for several months and found, 

 from his own creamery checks that he had been paid $1.75 per day for 

 drawing milk. This was twenty-five cents more than he said he wanted, 

 but he had not taken the trouble to find out how much he was receiving 

 before he came in to make his complaint and demand of $1.50 per day. 



It is too often the case that creamery patrons keep no records what- 

 ever, and do not have the slightest idea as to where they are at. They 

 look at the amount of their check without thinking that the size of their 

 cows, and their own size, is responsible for the size of their monthly 

 check. Many of them talk like a woman I met on the streets Decern- 



