FORTY-SECOND ANNUAL CONVENTION 113 



CREAM GRADING. 



J. B. Newman, Assistant State Food Commissioner, Illinois. 



Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen : The Food Depart- 

 ment, for the last three or four years has been endeavoring, and 

 I may say — with all its might and main — to establish cream 

 grading in our state. 



It is not necessary to say why we should grade cream. We 

 are making in this state about twenty-four million pounds of 

 creamery butter, and about forty-six million pounds of dairy 

 butter. If we could sell the twenty-four million pounds of cream- 

 ery butter at an advance of 3 cents a pound, and we feel that 

 where cream grading has been established, that could be done, 

 that would give three quarters of a million dollars more to the 

 producers. Of the forty-six million pounds of dairy butter, 

 one-half would profit to the extent of 3 cents and the other half 

 would profit to the extent of from 6 to 12 cents. Taking it at 

 6 cents we have about two and three quarters million dollars 

 gain, and together with the profit that would be gained on the 

 creamery butter, would make a total of close to three and one- 

 half million dollars, if we could have graded cream in this state. 



That is just the financial return to the producer. The 

 creamery operator would share, over and above this as he would 

 find a more select or choice market for this fancy butter and 

 the consumption of such butter would increase for, as the fel- 

 low said, ''People would take to it," and it would develop a 

 larger consumption which in turn would stimulate the trade. 



I am ashamed to say that we do not hold the rank that we 

 used to, and without any doubt, — and I say it without any hes- 

 itation — there is nobody so much to blame as the people who do 

 not take the proper care of the cream they produced and the 

 creameryman who does not co-operate in cream grading. 



If there are any creamerymen taking the stand that they 

 are not going to grade and are not going to pay more for good 

 cream than they do for poor, they are no credit to the creamer)-? 



