1899 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER. 
247 
The Milk Trade. 
THE OUTLOOK FOR MILK. 
AN OLD-TIME MILK PRODUCER TALKS. 
Cause of Low Prices.— I don’t think 
that the price of milk to the producer 
can be changed, not made greater at any 
rate. If it go either way, it will be 
lower. I don’t consider myself a pessi¬ 
mist ; on the other hand, I prefer to be 
called an optimist. Nevertheless, I don’t 
go around kicking over every stone that 
I may chance to stumble on, expecting 
to find a gold nugget under it; did I, 
then I would be a pessimist, as the man 
who constantly looks for the golden egg 
is bound to be disappointed. 
There are three prime reasons for the 
low price of milk : Depression of cereals, 
rapid transit and refrigerator cars. I 
see no cause of alarm in this condition 
of things. I believe the present young 
man, of the proper grit , can make as 
much money in agriculture as his father 
did in the sixties. 
Of all agricultural products, none, ex¬ 
cepting fruit, has held its own as well 
as dairy products, including eggs and 
poultry. Note, I did not except orchards, 
but fruit. I know of any number of 
orchards that would havepa’d much bet¬ 
ter if the man who set them had made 
a bonfire instead. In Monroe County, 
the successful fruit growers are horti¬ 
culturists, not farmers. 
My father commenced to produce milk 
for the Rochester market in the middle 
sixties. He received at the barn, three 
cents per quart for four months, four 
cents for four months, and five cents 
for four months, cash every week at the 
house, not one cent bad debts. Grade 
cows cost from $85 to $125 each. All 
cereals were high. One by-product, 
brewers’ grains, was eight cents per 
bushel in Summer, 10 to 12 cents in Win¬ 
ter. All the producers in our town could 
be counted on the fingers of a crippled 
hand. No tt you can’t count them on the 
fingers of an octopus; result—strong 
competition. 
What Is to Be Done ? —I say, follow 
Ex-Gov. Hoard’s advice, and produce 
cows that will give twice the amount of 
milk that the present cows do. Next 
feed cheap feeds, such as corn ensilage 
and Alfalfa. Some timid one will bob 
up and say, “ Suppose every one follow 
this advice, what will be the result ? ” 
Never fear, the millennium of dairy pro¬ 
duction is a great way off ; we are still 
far from the top. 
I wish to indorse every word that R. 
F. Shannon, page 209, has to say with 
reference to milch cows at fairs. I think 
it a case for the Humane Society to lock 
into. When I was 10 or 12 years old, 
my father kept 12 to 15 cows; among 
them was a large dark red cow that he 
had grown from a calf. This cow gener¬ 
ally came fresh in April or May, and 
gave a large flow of milk on grass. At 
that time, all cows were milked in the 
yard. When the milker came into the 
yard at night with the pail to milk, this 
cow would come up and stand beside 
him ; if he walked away, she would 
follow, until he sat down and milked 
her, then she paid no more attention to 
him. What would you think of a man 
who would let that cow go without being 
milked until next morning or later ? I 
should think him a fit subject for the 
electric chair. I have been 35 years a 
milk producer. H. w. H. 
Rochester, N. Y. 
SOME MASSACHUSETTS DAIRY 
PROBLEMS. 
Value of Milk Products. —The pro¬ 
duction and sale of a product which com¬ 
poses 32 per cent of the total agricultural 
income of a people, may well give “ food 
for thought”. According to the latest pub- 
Hshed census of Massachusetts, the prod¬ 
uct of the State, as a whole, is exceeded 
in seven of the 13 counties. The relative 
rank is as follows : Hampshire, 37.4 per 
cent; Berkshire, 35.1; Essex, 34.5 ; Wor¬ 
cester, 33.9; Norfolk, 33.6; Nantucket, 
33 3 ; Franklin, 32 8 ; Barnstable being 
lowest, or 17 6 . Of the total value of 
dairy products of the State,-amounting to 
$16 234,049, milk constitutes 84.42 per 
cent; butter, 9.28; cream, 6.23; cheese, 
0 07. The problem we have to solve then 
is how best to produce, and how dispose 
to the best advantage of this $16,000,000 
worth of dairy products. 
We find that, as to milk, 16,983 in a 
total of 65,287 farmers report a product 
of 59,593,316 gallons, valued at $9,372,072, 
about 16 cents per gallon. For how 
much less than 16 cents, then, can we 
produce milk ? This will be our living 
as far as this product goes. How much 
more than the average can we get ? This 
materially adds to our profits. 
We find that one town located in east¬ 
ern Massachusetts is getting 16 8 cents 
per gallon for milk, $2 06 for cream, 30 3 
cents per pound for butter. On the con¬ 
trary, Franklin County gets but 11 cents 
for milk, 39 cents for cream, and for but¬ 
ter 23 cents per pound. In the first case, 
the cream market is, evidently, for 
cream as such for the manufacturing 
city or town, while in the second case, it 
is, apparently, cream sold to butter fac¬ 
tories. From the latter sale, however, 
the farmer receives, in the case of coop¬ 
erative factories, whatever dividend may 
be declared on the business as a manu¬ 
facturer, which amount does not appear 
in an agricultural census. Again the 
cost of production in the second instance 
may be and probably is less, certainly in 
the season of pasturing, since land is 
cheaper. Grain is, probably, about the 
same ; possibly hay is cheaper. 
What Can Be Done ?—There is an¬ 
other item to be considered, too: The 
possibility of supplying the smaller vil¬ 
lages and towns, which market is quite 
likely to be neglected, while large mar¬ 
kets are so often overloaded. In short, 
let us study improved and modern meth¬ 
ods more ; make new and shorter roads 
to the consumer’s pocket, and thus save 
middlemen the trouble and ourselves the 
expense of present methods. 
Too many robber cows again may be a 
cause of no profit, and the average 
farmer may know, near enough for prac¬ 
tical purposes, all about his milk prod¬ 
uct; but it seems that the average 
farmer is mistaken in that he does not 
know just how much each cow is pro¬ 
ducing, and which he may be keeping at 
a loss. The idea is a mistaken one that 
it is too much trouble to know the cost 
of farm products. Some have an idea 
that the cost in time and trouble is ex¬ 
cessive to keep any record or account of 
such matters; but from an experience of 
many years, I have not found the work 
either irksome or expensive, but quite 
the contrary. Yet out of more than 
1,200 farmers whom I had occasion to 
ask, “ How much milk do you make in a 
year ? ” but three could tell, and but one 
of the three had been brought up and 
always been a farmer. h. e d. 
More “ Body ” to Separator Cream. 
J. H. S., Bethlehem , Pa .—Some find fault with 
my cream, and say that it will not whip some¬ 
times. It is separator cream, 24, also 36 hours 
old, but there is no difference. Must not cream 
be of a certain temperature to whip well ? The 
people try to whip it as it is, any temperature. 
Ans. —The difficulty in whipping sepa¬ 
rator cream can be obviated by cooling 
it to 45 or 50 degrees, and holding it at 
that temperature a few hours. This 
cooling seems to give a “body” which 
is lacking in separator cream, but which 
is supplied in the deep-setting system, 
because in the latter, a temperature of 
40 to [50 degrees is retained from 12 to 
24 hours. A substance known as vis¬ 
cogen, first prepared at the Wisconsin 
Experiment Station, is coming into use 
for restoring the body or consistency of 
separator and Pasteurized cream. This 
substance is made from sugar and lime, 
and the method of preparation is thus 
described in the Thirteenth Annual Re¬ 
port of the Station. 
“Two and one-half parts by weight of 
a good quality of cane sugar (granulated) 
are dissolved in five parts of water, and 
one part of quicklime gradually slaked 
in three parts of water. This milk of 
lime should be poured through a wire 
strainer to remove coarse, unslaked par¬ 
ticles, and then be added to the sugar 
solution. The mixture should be agitated 
at frequent intervals, and after two or 
three hours, allowed to settle until the 
clear supernatant fluid can be siphoned 
off.” 
The amount of this clear liquid to be 
added to cream is usually about one part 
to 150 of cream. This mixture is per¬ 
fectly harmless to health, and its use re¬ 
stores to cream the whipping quality. 
Still its use in cream offered fpr sale 
may be prohibited under the provisions 
of New York State laws concerning adul¬ 
terated milk. Cream thus treated might 
be sold under the name of visco-cream, 
and then there should be no legal ob¬ 
jection. L. A. 
The Virtues of a 
Good Cream Separator. 
(Just What A'Farmer Wants.) 
Stillwater. Pa.. 1898. 
“We have the De Laval‘Humming-Bird' cream 
separator, and 1 am satisfied that it is one of the best 
investments that a farmer can make. First we gave 
it a test, and we gained one pound on every six pounds 
of butter, and we got a much better quality of 
butter. The washing of crocks and cans and all 
this extra work is done away with, and we have the 
warm skim-miik to feed to calves and pigs, on which 
they do so much better, and it takes only from 1U to 
15 minutes to churn. It seems a small chore now to 
churn. I would not do without a machine for what 
it cost for a great deal. 1 am well satisfied it Is just 
what a farmer wants and with the extra butter ami 
time and labor and expense it saves us it will easily 
pay for itself in one year." Harvey R. Ash. 
(Perfectly Simple in Operation.) 
Warrensburg, Mo., January 19, 1899. 
“ We have now used the De Laval ‘ Humming Bird’ 
three years, and have not missed a single milking in 
that time. Last year we made 1,800 pounds of butter. 
The machine is snnply perfect and perfectly simple 
in operation. Our little girl 10 years old can operate 
it, take it apart, and clean It and put it together 
again.’’ Mrs. Ezra Roop. 
So-called “buttermilk ” is made out of skim- 
milk by adding a “ starter ” to separator skim- 
milk. This “ starter ” may be the buttermilk left 
from the previous churning. It “ works ” or 
changes the skim-milk. 
Tub new English bill governing the sale of 
foods and drugs contains the following: “ Every 
person who, in any highway or place of public 
resort, sells milk from a vehicle or from a can or 
other receptacle, shall have inscribed on the ve¬ 
hicle or receptacle the name and address of the 
person by whom or on whose behalf the milk is 
sold, and in default shall be liable on summary 
conviction to a fine not exceeding £2. 
“ Every tin or other receptacle containing con¬ 
densed separated or skimmed milk must bear a 
abel on which the words ‘separated milk’ or 
‘skimmed milk’, as the case may require, are 
printed in large and legible type, and if any per¬ 
son sells or exposes or offers for sale condensed 
separated or skimmed milk in contravention of 
this section he shall be liable on summary con¬ 
viction to a fine not exceeding £2.” 
PRICK OF FEEDS. 
City bran, per ton.17 00 @17 50 
Spring bran, 200-lb sacks, per ton.16 75 @17 00 
Spring bran to arrive.16 25 @16 50 
Middlings, as to quality, per ton—16 00 @18 00 
Sharps, per ton.18 00 @19 00 
Red dog, per ton.17 00 @17 50 
Linseed oil meal, to arrive and spot...24 75 @25 00 
Cake.24 75 @25 00 
Cotton-seed meal.22 00 @22 50 
Brewers’ ineal and grits, per 100 lbs.... 95 @ 1 00 
Hominy chops. 75 @ 80 
Coarse meal, western. 83 @ 85 
Save the Pennies. 
The butter fat left 
in the skim-milk by 
the old process of 
dairying would go a 
long way toward edu¬ 
cating the boys and 
if saved and con- 
into fine fla¬ 
vored, high quality 
butter. The Sharp¬ 
less Separators will 
save the butter fat and 
make it sell at the 
highest market price. 
Learn all about them in our free Cata¬ 
logue No. 25. 
P. M. SHARPLES, 
Branches: West Chester, Pa. 
Toledo, O. Omaha, Neb. 
Dubuque, la. St. Paul, Minn. 
San Francisco, Cal. 
Top Price Butter. 
The kind that a fancy private 
trade demands, is colored with 
Thatcher's Orange Butter Color — 
the color that does not contain 
(A Very Durable Machine.) 
Leeds. Mass., 1898. 
“We have used the 1 Alpha-Baby ’ No. 3 for over 
four years with the best of results; in fact, we could 
not get along without it, as it saves so much labor. 
We can make more butter and of a finer quality than 
in any other way, It is a great saver of ice also, as 
there is only a very little required to keep the cream 
at an even temperature. It is a very durable ma¬ 
chine. We have had no expense whatever except 
for oil and bowl rlDgs. Can see no reason why it will 
not last us a lifetime.” James Clapp & Sox. 
(“Alpha Baby” Superiority.) 
White Pigeon, Mich.. December 19,1898. 
“I am using an ‘Alpha-Baby ” No. 2 and take pleas¬ 
ure in writing of its excellent qualities. I was using 
a Cooley creamer, but consented to try a ‘ Baby' last 
Fall. ’The first week I made five pounds more butter 
than I had the week before with the creamer, and 
the butter was of better quality, finer grain, nicer 
flavor, and could be kept longer without getting 
strong. We find a good market for separator butter 
the year ’round at from 22 to 25 cents per pound. I 
had tried other makes of separators, but never found 
anything which possessed the same merit as the 
‘Alpha-Baby.’ It runs easier, skims cleaner, at dif¬ 
ferent temperatures, and can be washed in no time. 
If a farmer has 10 cows well taken care of and a 
separator he will find this to be the most profitable 
branch of his business.” Jos. S. Gortner. 
SEND FOR NEW 1899 CATALOGUE 
THE DE LAVAL SEPARATOR GO., 
Randolph & Canal Sts., I 74 Cortlandt Street, 
CHICAGO. \ NEW YORK. 
A Milk Cooler 
is a device for cooling milk quickly 
just after it is taken from the cow. 
f The object is to expose every par¬ 
ticle of it to the air. thus cooling 
"it and driving out all hml odors 
and germs which spoil milk very 
quickly and reduce its value. 
The Perfection Milk Cooler and Aerator 
does this quicker and better than any other, Send for 
prices and free catalogue of f arm and Dairy supplies. 
L. R. LEWIS, Manfr., Box 12, Cortland, N. V. 
X GOOD FLAVOR 
is worth more hi dairy products than any¬ 
where eJse in the world. Perfect flavor In 
milk, cream, butter, and elieene 
reMulta from iimIiijc the 
„ , CHAMPION 
Ilk Cooler and Aerator.Takesoutall 
bad odors and leaves a sweet, long-keeping 
product. It both aerates and cools milk. 
•>ee book, “Milk,” explains all. 
Champion MllkCoolerCo 
Milk Dealers’ Supplies, 
39 Railrond St., CORTLAND, N. Y. 
TRUE DAIRY SUPPLY CO., 
CONTRACTORS AND BUILDERS OP 
Butter and Cheese Factories, 
AND MANUFACTURERS OP 
Machinery, Apparatus and Supplies for 
Cheese and Butter Factories, 
Creameries and Dairies. 
303,305,307 and 309 Lock St., Syracuse, N. Y. 
References: First Nat. Bank of Syracuse; State Bank 
of Syracuse; R. G. Dun A Co.’s Mercantile Agency; 
The Bradstreet Co.’s Mercantile Agency, or any Bank 
or Business House in Syracuse and adjacent towns. 
any poison. Send for a sample. 
THATCHER MFG. CO., Potsdam, H.Y. 
Milkmen— Use the Acme Ticket. It is 
sanitary, Reliable, cheap. Sample free. 
H. A. BLAKESLEE, Hartford, Conn. 
WHAT THE PRESIDENT SAYS 
ABOUT 
THE IMPROVED U. S. SEPARATOR. 
Brattleboro, Vt., Feb. 27 th, xSqq. 
It gives me pleasure to say that the dairy machinery 
bought of your company two years ago, including a No. 5 
Improved U. S. Separator and a Pony Power, is working well 
and giving entire satisfaction. 
The Improved U. S. Separator is doing all and even more 
than was claimed by your agent. The separation is perfect, it 
runs easily, without noise or friction, and it is easy to manage 
and care for. Of all the separators placed upon the market, 
there is none that excels the Improved U. S. in my opinion. 
G. W. PIERCE, President Vt. Dairymen’s Ass’n. 
Write for our latest Illustrated Catalogues. 
VERMONT FARM MACHINE COMPANY, 
Bellows Falls, Vt. 
