402 



GENERAL AGRICULTURAL NOTES. [March 1897. 



Cheese-making on the factory plan has not become established 

 to any extent in the three States under consideration. North 

 Dakota seems to have done more than the others, although the 

 aggregrate product of Nebraska is larger. It is claimed that 

 in the year 1895 about 1,000,000 lbs. of cheese were made in 

 factories in the latter State and about half as much on farms. 

 In North Dakota the estimate for the same year is 400,000 lbs. 

 for factory cheese, but this is probably in excess of the fact. 

 Nebraska reports show that about 9^ lbs. of cheese is produced 

 from 100 lbs. of milk, and North Dakota reports show something 

 over 10 lbs. 



American "Ladled" Butter. 



A Report published by the United States Department of 

 Agriculture on the dairy industry in Nebraska and Dakota 

 contains some interesting information relating to the production 

 of an inferior quality of butter rn the United States, which is 

 known in the trade as ladled butter. It appears that the newer 

 dairying districts of the Dakotas and Nebraska produce immense 

 quantities of this class of butter, or that which, after treatment, 

 comes to be thus known, and the largest establishments for 

 handling this material are in the north-west. One or two are 

 located in Nebraska. There are none yet in the Dakotas, and 

 the ladled butter from those States is at present sent to 

 factories in Minnesota and Iowa for renovation, and some of 

 it to Chicago. 



In all parts of the country where butter is made by small 

 farmers at their homes, quantities of it are sold to the local 

 storekeepers. The condition of a considerable part of this 

 butter is such that the dealers cannot sell it to their retail 

 customers. These numerous small lots of poor, damaged, and 

 thoroughly bad butter have to be disposed of as grease, or go 

 to establishments which gather large quantities of the material 

 and so manipulate and "renovate" it as to bring it into a 

 merchantable form as food. In the market quotations these 

 products are called " ladles." 



The business is carried on as follows : The local storekeepers 

 take butter in exchange for goods. The price allowed to all the 

 producers at any one store is the same, quite regardless of the 

 quality of the butter. As a rule, merchants sell what they can of 

 the best which is received, without any profit or else at an advance 

 of a halfpenny or a penny. The remainder, which in most cases 

 constitutes much the greater part of the receipts, is dumped into 

 receptacles of all kinds, and periodically sent off to the centres 

 for ladling. Flour barrels, starch boxes, shoe boxes, and soap 

 boxes have been indiscriminately utilised for this purpose. 

 Much of this so-called butter is of such a character that it makes 



