14 BULLETIN 682, U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 
when local competitive conditions permit. During the year 1914, 
when representatives of the department were investigating market- 
ing conditions in the Middle West, it was found that the creameries 
in St. Paul, for example, were receiving at certain seasons higher 
prices than neighboring country creameries which shipped to Chi- 
cago. More than 375 lots of butter, which were scored in 103 repre- 
sentative retail stores, hotels, and restaurants in St. Paul and Minne- 
apolis, showed that, for the best grade of country creamery butter 
in that market, certain retailers catering to a select class of trade 
were paying practically 2 cents per pound more than the usual price 
for the prevailing grades of both country creamery and centralizer 
butter in that market. 3 
Only a small portion of the total requirements of those two cities, 
however, was supplied by country creameries. Retail grocers gen- 
erally made no attempt to select their purchases on the basis of 
quality. Individual retailers usually restricted their dealings to a 
single centralizer creamery which supplied them regularly two or 
three times a week with freshly churned goods. Some of them 
stated that they believed that certain country creameries could sup- 
ply them with a better grade of butter, but they had found that con- 
sumers generally preferred the attractive retail packages of well- 
advertised brands which were supplied by large centralizer creameries. 
Even though expert judges of butter were able to detect superiority 
in the quality of some of the country “make,” retailers and con- 
sumers generally did not notice any decidedly “ off flavors” in the 
brands furnished by the local centralizers. This was because they 
were in a position to deliver freshly churned stock three or four 
times a week. The difference in quality between some country cream- 
ery stock and the current supply of centralizer brands was slight at 
that season of the year. The average score of 120 lots of country 
creamery butter was 89.96, as compared with a score of 89.39 for 220 
lots of centralizer brands. 
Under such conditions it is difficult for country creameries to gain 
a dependable market outlet in cities where certain large creameries 
have developed a demand for their own make of goods. When out- 
side creameries begin to make large shipments to such cities, prices 
are immediately forced down, because of the lack of established out- 
of-town trade connections. Unless creameries of the Middle Western 
States, where butter is constantly produced in excess of local demands, 
establish local concentrating points with facilities for grading and 
storing, and with widely ramifying trade connections in many sec- 
tions of the country, their choice between dependable market outlets 
is practically limited to such wholesale markets as Chicago, New 
York, Boston, and Philadelphia. 
