Vol. LXII. No. 2798. 
NEW YORK, SEPTEMBER 12, 1903. 
$1 PER YEAR. 
EIGHT-COW FARMER AND CREAMERY. 
SHALL, HE MAKE BUTTER AT HOME ? 
Both Sides Considered. 
Would it pay me better to join a cobperatlve creamery 
now forming than to make my own butter? I would 
have to haul my milk about three miles every day in a 
different direction from my other teaming, besides lead¬ 
ing water about 300 feet to make a handy spring. I can 
start in with eight cows, my present stock. It would 
cost $4 per cow for five years to start with. Would I 
make enough more to pay me for the extra trouble? 
New York. reader. 
Some Advantages of the Creamery. 
The questioner should first realize that he will need 
the "handy spring" or some other device to furnish 
plenty of pure cold water for washing butter, cooling 
and holding his cream, and probably his night’s milk, 
as well if he makes his own butter as if he patronizes 
a creamery. I presume he intends to use a separator. 
Next, if a first-class article of butter is to be made, 
some one must make it his business to attend to it 
regularly and on time. There is no greater autocrat 
than the cream pail. It is very little more expense to 
equip for and little more labor to make the butter 
from 20 than from eight cows. There should also be 
some way of obtaining boiling water in abundance 
other than the kitchen stove. He cannot properly 
equip himself for $160 or $4 per cow for five years, so 
as to control conditions, which is the secret of making 
good butter. This is not taking into consideration a 
suitable exclusive place in which to do the work, 
which he may already have. To make the butter will 
mean this kind of work 365 days in the year. On the 
other hand, it is no small job to carry milk three 
miles each day; horse labor and wear on wagon and 
harness must also be reckoned in. This too is con¬ 
stant. It can often be done by a boy or cheap help. 
'The writer has one girl 12 years old who brings here 
her father’s milk from Spring to Fall, and another 
young woman who has brought for her father during 
harvest. I do not recommend any course that will 
regularly take the farmer off the farm during the 
important morning hours. I have noticed the effect 
of this is bad, often on the morals as well as the 
pocketbook. Generally, the creamery, if well man¬ 
aged, turns out a better article of butter and obtains 
more net per pound than does the farm made. But 
if he will (controlling conditions from the cow to the 
finished product), the farm butter-maker can make 
the finest butter, and if properly located get an outside 
price for it. Then, too, the money from the cream¬ 
ery comes regularly in a lump sum. It is hard to ad¬ 
vise at arm’s length without knowing the man and 
all his conditions. It will depend entirely on him. 
Ordinarily I should say for the eight-cow man, pat¬ 
ronize the creamery. I have, however, tried briefly to 
set in order both sides with their advantages and dis¬ 
advantages. EDWARD VAN ALSTYNE. 
New York. 
Arguments on Both Sides. 
From my own viewpoint I should not for one mo¬ 
ment think of hauling the milk of eight cows, three 
miles a day. I could not feel justified in spending 
two to three hours a day on a milk wagon, but this 
statement does not settle the question for every man. 
Perhaps in no other way could many dairymen earn 
as much in that length of time. I can give what is 
to me satisfactory judgment when I know the man, 
his make-up and natural bent. A case like this, how¬ 
ever, one can only generalize, and the questioner must 
settle the case for himself. There are so many things 
to consider. If this is not a thickly-settled cow sec¬ 
tion, and it needs the combined effort of every man 
within a radius of three miles to make the creamery a 
success, then one should have public spirit and charge 
up a part of the hauling to that account. If there is 
a chance that your eight cows will increase and soon 
be a dairy of 15 or 20, or if there is a possibility that 
soon a milk route could be established and these small 
dairies unite and hire a team to do the hauling, in 
either case patronize the creamery, or if you are not 
adapted to butter-making and to finding a private 
trade at a fancy price. If you do not care to exercise 
the same scrupulous cleanliness and attention to de¬ 
tails that the creameryman does with his larger busi¬ 
ness, and to meet the trouble of trade, then patronize 
the creamery. If you feel enthusiastic now about 
home butter-making and then later get tired of such 
an exacting profession, and forget in the busy season 
(and this can come at any time of year) to come back 
in time to churn, etc., only to find your thoughtful 
wife had "done up the work,’’ then patronize the 
creamery. 
On the other hand, if you care to manage through 
a series of years the highest type of dairy work, that 
A FINE JERSEY COW. Fig, a42. See Page 6.54. 
does certainly develop one’s resources, and some mem¬ 
ber of the family takes kindly to the work, you may 
be just the man to carry on private butter-making, 
feeding the sweet skim-milk to purebred or high- 
grade calves that are always salable at a good price. 
If it becomes necessary to hire some one to do the 
milk and butter work at a price usually paid for such 
service, you cannot possibly expect to succeed with 
this small dairy. There is an organic or economic 
law underlying this business not unlike all other ac¬ 
tivities; viz., that volume of business reduces the per 
unit expense of manufacture. A creamery manufac¬ 
turing 500 pounds of butter a day can make more net 
profit than one making 250 pounds. The equipment 
for first-class butter-making is expensive and the first 
cost of a small plant is out of proportion to the cost 
of a large one. The big plants are eating up or ab¬ 
sorbing the small ones, and the small plants at first 
do the work of a number of private dairymen. In 27 
years of cheese factory and creamery experience I 
have yet to know of a single case where the private 
dairyman has been able to compete with our factory 
management, but of course with us very little milk is 
hauled much over two miles. I suppose the reader 
will wonder how the first statement and the last can 
coincide. Well, we got tired of hauling the milk of 
50 cows a long distance, many years ago, and started 
a creamery which grew from 140 to 700 cows. Maybe 
the inquirer can do the same. When a man halts be¬ 
tween two opinions the best thing to do before he 
asks the opinion of anyone is to take a full and com¬ 
plete inventory of himself, and see just what he is 
cut out to do. There is absolutely no use to-day for 
anyone even to try to do a business that he is not 
fitted for. If half the time we spend in wisely map¬ 
ping out the right course for our neighbor was quietly 
set apart for an inventory of self it would be a grand 
thing, whether we like this philosophy or not. 
H. E. COOK. 
The Home Dairy Preferred. 
In regard to the cooperative creamery question 1 
will say that I have always been opposed to it, and 
can see no reason why I should change my mind in 
this case. I think that the milk can be manufac¬ 
tured into butter at home much more easily than it 
can be drawn three miles, and there is no earthly 
reason why pure fresh milk cannot be made into a 
better and higher-priced article at home than is pos¬ 
sible to make at a creamery where milk or cream is 
hauled several miles and delivered in all degrees of 
cleanliness or filth, as the case may be. Where the 
cooperative creamery is run on the old slipshod 
plan of taking everyone’s milk at what it weighs, re¬ 
gardless of quality, I can see where two classes of 
patrons may come out ahead; first, the one who pro¬ 
duces milk so poor in butter fat that his neighbor’s 
milk will materially help to bring up the quality, 
and second (of which, of course, there are no readers 
of The R. N.-Y.), the patron whose milk is so dirty 
that by mixing with clean milk he may get a little 
more, while the other fellow gets a good deal less. I 
will not try to compare the two plans, but will give 
my reasons for manufacturing my milk at home, and 
let some one who likes the other way tell why he likes 
it. In the first place, home manufacture gives one a 
chance to build up a reputation for his butter, and so 
get better than the market price. Second, he can im¬ 
prove his dairy by breeding rich milkers, and get all 
the benefit of doing so. Third, he has his skim-milk 
(and all of it) warm, sweet and pure to feed his 
calves and pigs. I have now been making butter on 
my place a little over 10 years, and I have increased 
my income more than 300 per cent in that time. By 
the use of the silo and by soiling I can keep more 
cows, and by changing from common stock to pure 
Jerseys their butter capacity has greatly increased. 
By using a separator I get more cream from the 
milk, and by treating them fairly well I have cus¬ 
tomers for my butter at a fair margin above the New 
York market price. At first I used a Crystal creamer, 
which gave good satisfaction, and was comparatively 
easy to operate. A separator agent wished me to try 
his machine, so I let him set one up for me. Then I 
weighed the miik and used my creamer for one 
churning, being very careful to get all the cream I 
could. Next I used the separator for one churning 
and I got two-thirds of a pound of butter more for 
each 100 pounds of milk run through the separator. 
My machine is of 450 pounds per hour capacity. I 
have used it three years, twice a day for 365 days 
every year; have made no repairs as yet, and it runs 
as well as when bought. I milk all the year round, 
for my customers eat butter in January as well as in 
June. I try to keep up as even a flow of milk as pos¬ 
sible, so the cows come fresh at all times. From 
March 1 to September 1 my herd has made me in 
butter alone $51.64 for each cow. I am aiming for 
the $100 mark this year. j. grant morse. 
Madison Co., N. Y. 
