82 ILLINOIS DAIRYMEN'S ASSOCIATION. 



the losses which they have incurred as a result of the manufacture 

 and sale of a mixture of lard, tallow and cottonseed oil, known 

 as oleomargarine, but until July 1 of this year almost universally 

 sold or served as butter, because of the face that it was colored 

 in exact imitation thereof. 



In 1886 this traffic amounted to 21,513,537 pounds; in 1894 

 it had grown to 69,622,246 pounds; in 1900 to 107,045,023 

 pounds, and during the last fiscal year was 123,180,075 pounds, 

 equal to 2,463,615 fifty-pound tubs, over six thousand car-loads, 

 or as much oleomargarine as one thousand large creameries turn 

 out butter. In other words, twenty-seven oleomargarine fac- 

 tories turned out oleomargarine equal in quantity to 25 per cent, 

 of the butter product of all the creameries in the United States. 



The National Dairy Union was organized for the purpose of 

 fighting this fraud. 



In December, 1898, the proposition to ask congress to place 

 a tax of 10 cents per pound upon oleomargarine, colored in imita- 

 tion of butter, was laid before the dairymen of the country by 

 this organization. The work was immediately taken up, and, 

 after more than three years of constant effort, the measure was 

 finally passed. Every buttermaker or creamery manager knows 

 what the results have been. 



Those most benefitted by the work of the National Dairy 

 Union are the milkers of cows. Every cent added to the value 

 of butter is a cent directly in their pockets. The merchant 

 makes as much on butter sold at 15 cents as he does on that sold 

 at 25 cents, and the former price requires less capital to handle; 

 the creamery company is benefitted only to the extent of its 

 increased output of butter, which results from driving a fraudu- 

 lent competitor out of the market. It is the farmer who gets 

 nine-tenths of any advance in price of butter." 



The next creamery established was at Sigel, eight miles 

 north of here, on the Illinois Central. Although being just over 

 the line in Shelby county, it is somewhat connected with Effing- 

 ham county in a business way, at any rate with the creamery 



