1912 . 
THE RURAL* NEW-YORKER 
47 
MILK 
The New York Exchange price is $2.01 
per 40-quart can, netting 4% cents per 
quart to shippers in 26-cent zone who have 
no additional station charges. 
The New Y’ork Health Board' has re¬ 
scinded the order which was to be effective 
January 1 because a classified schedule had 
taken its place, with practically the same 
intent, but not having a time limit. Ac¬ 
cording to the new ruling, there will be a 
cheap milk, known as “Grade C,” which 
will be for cooking purposes, and can be 
sold loose or dipped also, for it must be 
pasteurized. In the near future all milk 
dealers in this city will be required by 
the Board of Health to state what grades 
of milk they expect to sell—either the high 
grades, not requiring pasteurization, or the 
grades which do, and according to their 
statements their selling permits will be 
Issued. 
THE TAX ON OLEO. 
An effort is being made by the oleomar¬ 
garine interests to convey the idea that the 
present high price of butter is due to a 
butter trust, and that the “tax on oleo¬ 
margarine” helps to keep butter up to its 
present position and adds to the cost of 
living. 
I have made some investigations as to 
the reason for the prevailing high price of 
butter, and am convinced that it is al¬ 
most, if not quite, entirely due to the 
natural operation of the law of supply and 
demand. Take the country over, the sup¬ 
ply of butter, particularly of the finer 
qualities, is comparatively small. A Bos¬ 
ton expert market reporter says: “Sup¬ 
plies of strictly fine grade continue scarce.” 
lie also says that “the cold storage ware¬ 
houses contain 140.452 packages, against 
249,477 packages at the same time last 
year.” A correspondent who is a large pro¬ 
ducer of butter, writing to me a personal 
letter from Chicago, with no idea that I 
would quote from it for any newspaper 
article, says: “Butter is so all-fired high 
that this fact is sure to work against us. 
Stocks of butter, from all I learn, are light. 
The Winter make, of course, is not suffi¬ 
cient to meet the demand.” The New York 
Produce Review reitei’ates the same kind 
of - information, saying “the gradual wear¬ 
ing away of the storage stock is making 
the trade more and more dependent upon 
the receipts of fresh goods.” A market re¬ 
port from Chicago says : “The coolers hold 
very little fine butter of this year’s make.” 
A Philadelphia report says : ‘“Owing to the 
scarcity of high-grade goods, dealers have 
been obliged to give more attention to 
medium grades, and supplies of these have 
also been well cleared up.” Cumulative 
evidence of these facts comes to me re¬ 
peatedly in personal correspondence from 
persons in the trade and orally from those 
who are in a position to know something 
about the butter market. Now. then, it is 
possible for all these observers of condi¬ 
tions from Boston to Chicago, for market 
reporters and others, to be either hood¬ 
winked or deliberate tools of thp “inter¬ 
ests” in a misstatement of market condi¬ 
tions which are improperly controlled, but 
it is hard for me to believe that. It is. 
furthermore, a matter of common knowl¬ 
edge, that there was a bad drought last 
Summer, that market milk supplies were 
short as a consequence, and that much milk 
was diverted from butter and cheese fac¬ 
tories to city supplies. 
Does the “tax on oleomargarine” have 
any connection with these high prices? In 
the first place, it must be remembered that 
the expression “tax on oleomargarine” used 
bv our opponents is entirely misleading. 
Oleomargarine as such—the natural, un- 
colored artielp—Is practically untaxed. 
This oleomargarine is sold by the manu¬ 
facturers to retailers at from 12 to 19 
cents, mostly from 15 to 19; at least these 
were the quotations only a few days ago. 
At these prices the retailer can afford to 
sell this oleomargarine to the consumer, 
honestly for what it is. at from 20 to 25 
cents per pound. While in Chicago a few 
days ago I noticed that one of the depart¬ 
ment stores was advertising it at 20 cents 
n pound. Some of the retail stores here 
in Washington are selling it at 28 cents 
per pound. Now. then, where is there any 
possible chance for the “tax on oleomar¬ 
garine” to have any possible effect or con¬ 
nection with, or relation to. the price of 
butter? The retailer of butter at least a 
few days ago, was paying from 25 to 40 
cents and retailing it at from 35 to 40 
cents. (I have to pay 45 cents. 1 
When oleomargarine is colored so as to 
imitate butter and be an imitation article 
the Government (which practically taxes 
the natural, honest product nothing) steps 
in and imposes a tax of 10 cents per 
pound. Only a small minority of oleomar¬ 
garine pays this tax, hut not enough to 
have any possible connection with the cost 
of butter. On the other hand, if it were 
not for this color-tax law. much of the oleo¬ 
margarine now retailed at from 20 to 28 
cents would he colored so as to be indis¬ 
tinguishable from butter by the ordinary 
consumer and then sold at from 30 to 38 
cents, keeping just two or three cents un¬ 
der the price of butter and fluctuating up 
and down with the butter market. The 
added price would go into the pockets of 
the oleo dealers, to the deception and loss 
of the consumers buying the article. 
Therefore the tax on the colored oleo does 
not add to the cost of living, but saves the 
consumer 10 to 15 cents per pound on oleo. 
I admit that it would be possible to im¬ 
agine a set of conditions under which the 
market would be so flooded with an imita¬ 
tion. dishonest product, sold dishonestly at 
an exaggerated price, as to ruin the mar¬ 
ket for the genuine article, to the injury 
both of consumers and producers. This is 
unquestionably what the greedy oleomar¬ 
garine trade would like to do; and to the 
extent that a law in the interest of com¬ 
mercial honesty restrains them from such 
a procedure, the tax on oleomargarine may 
possibly, by a strained construction, be said 
to be responsible for the high price of but¬ 
ter. But no consumer, however pinched by 
the high cost of living or however thrifty 
to save money, would care to see the mar¬ 
ket for a legitimate product absolutely 
ruined by the dishonest competition with a 
fraudulent imitation, geo. m. whitaker. 
R. N.-Y.—We cannot fully agree with Mr. 
Whitaker that butter prices are “almost if 
not quite entirely” due to demand and sup¬ 
ply. It is known that the Chicago packers 
and various oleo manufacturers have been 
heavy dealers in butter. They control great 
storage space where this butter is evidently 
held, and as we believe, secretly. They 
would be foolish to report how much they 
had when, by holding it back at this time, 
they could force up prices and thus enlist 
“public sentiment” for oleo. And where 
does all the oleo that is now made go to? 
Vast quantities are manufactured, but 
where do you find any appreciable quantity 
of it. in the East, retailed under its own 
name? 
CONCRETE TROUGH AND HOUSE. 
I noticed an item on page 1192 by J. 
S. K., of Grove, Vt., on a concrete water¬ 
ing trough, which he says is cheap. I 
think I could build one just as good if 
not better, and will not use half of the 
cement that he uses. He says for his 
foundation he used one to four mixture, 
when one to six, or one to eight would do 
just as well if he had good gravel, and 
one to four or five for his side walls, and 
in a week or 10 days I will guarantee that 
it will hold water and there will not any 
get away. A railroad company is now 
building a creamery here, and they use 
for their concrete work one of cement, 
three of crushed stone and five of gravel, 
cheaper than I made mine. I have just 
built a milk house, 8x10 feet, concrete 
floor and milk box. First I made a form 
8x10 feet, then I made a form four inches 
square by six feet long. This I laid on 
the bottom, from the center of the hole 
to the side and under the other form, this 
to form the drain. Then bored a two- 
inch hole in top at center and another 12 
inches from the form. A 2-inch iron pipe, 
the length of floor's thickness was fastened 
in center hole, this to take flood water. 
A pipe 9 inches long with thread cut on one 
end with sleeve on it, was set down in 
the 2-inch hole, so the sleeve will come 
8 ft. 
PLAN OF MILK HOUSE. Fig. 18. 
18 inches below the floor level, then cement 
put in up to the top of the sleeve on the 
pipe. This was let dry before going any 
farther. Then I built a form in shape of 
a box without any bottom, 6x2x6 inches, 
24 inches high and set this so the short 
pipe would be in one corner and stayed it. 
Cement was put in up to floor level and let 
dry ; then built a form 6 inches above floor 
around water box to raise box above the 
floor; filled this with cement. Another 2 
inch pipe, 20 inches long, the height of a 
milk can, with thread on one end was 
screwed in the pipe in corner of box, giv¬ 
ing an overflow. When it is desired to 
clean the box out unscrew the pipe and 
one does not have to wait long for water 
to drain off. This Is as good a way to fix 
a milk house as I have even seen. It is 
shown in Fig. 18. 
We are milking 13 cows and this morn¬ 
ing I took 522 pounds of milk to the 
creamery after feeding two calves and tak¬ 
ing out for two families, and tomorrow 
morning we will have, if they milk In the 
morning as they did tonight, 552%, or an 
average of 42% pounds per cow, and nor a 
purebred in the barn, and only 10 fresh 
ones at that. There are some who will 
not believe this. But we live only one- 
quarter mile from the main line of the 
O. & W. Railroad station, and we invite 
Inspection, even to the Board of Health. 
Winterton, N. Y. G. M. M. 
Milch cows bring from $40 to $60 a 
head : heavy draft horses sell for from $250 
to $300 each. Ilay sells for $20 per ton in 
barn. I do not know what silage is worth. 
Potatoes bring $1 per bushel. F. T. I. 
Beerston, N. Y. 
At this writing hay, baled. $15 to $20; 
pork, 8% cents a pound; milk, $1.50 per 
100 pounds ; fowls, 17 to 18 cents dressed ; 
eggs, 45 to 50 cents per dozen ; butter, 32 
to 45 cents. o. E. T. 
Ave, N. Y. 
Good dairy cows, $50 to $60, while sec¬ 
ond-class cattle are cheap from $15 to $25 
per head. Good hay from $18 to $20 per 
ton. No silage sold around here. One co¬ 
operative creamery paid for November $1.38 
per 100 for four per cent milk. Conden- 
sery and shipping stations are paying from 
$1.70 to $1.85 per 100. Potatoes, 85 cents 
to $1 per bushel. Dressed hogs, $7.50 per 
100. h. F. c. 
Charlotte, Va. 
The following are prices obtained for 
farm produce, etc., at auction sale in this 
section of the country : Cows, from $20 to 
$40; yearlings, from $7 to $10; horses, 
from $50 to $200: sheep, about $2.50 per 
head; hens, about 42 cents apiece; hay, $18 
per ton; straw, from $8 to $10; corn in 
the ear, 82 cents for 72 pounds. I never 
knew any silage to be sold at auction. At 
the market hogs, dressed, are worth eight 
cents a pound; potatoes, from 80 to 90 
cents a bushel : apples, 50 cents a bushel; 
dairy butter, 31 cents per pound; eggs, 42 
cents per dozen; chickens, eight cents a 
pound; milk is bringing four cents a quart 
at the creamery. w. G. 
Chemung, N. Y. 
The prices for farm produce are as fol¬ 
lows : Cows, from $50 to $75j horses, from 
$100 up; pork from five to "eight cents a 
pound; chickens, from 11 to 12 cents a 
pound; turkeys, 20 cents a pound; ducks, 
11 cents a pound; milk, four cents a quart; 
straw, $15 a ton; hay, $15 to $25 a ton; 
silage, $1 per ton ; manure, $1.50 a ton. 
Blue Stores, N. Y. h. d. 
Hogs, fat, 5% cents per pound ; fat cat¬ 
tle. four to six cents; horses, $150 to $200, 
mules the same; cows, fresh, $40 to $60; 
calves, $8 to $9 apiece. Apples, 60 cents 
to $1 a bushel. Sheep, $3 to $4 per head ; 
lambs, four to five cents per pound. Wheat, 
95 cents per bushel; oats 40 and 50 cents 
per bushel; rye, $1 per bushel ; corn, 60 
and 65 cents per bushel. Wheat looks 
very well, a wet open Winter so far. Corn 
not all shucked yet; is spoiling in the 
shock. j. e. w. 
Granville, O. 
The general farm produce from this sec¬ 
tion is marketed in the city of Waterbury, 
population about 75,000. Farmers supply 
regular customers every week, taking their 
own and buying from others, selling at 
wholesale to the retail stores whenever 
they have a surplus, and they surely get 
more than 35 cents of the consumer’s dol¬ 
lar. Eggs since November 1 have been 50 
cents per dozen wholesale. Potatoes, $1 
to $1.10; apples, good, $2.50 to $3.50 per 
barrel. Hay from $14 to $20 in the barn, 
according to quality. Silage not sold, and 
manure is too valuable to sell. Good cows, 
fresh, from $50 to $60; gilt-edge stock, 
all you can get. Good veal calves, eight 
to 8% cents, live weight. Hogs, dressed, 
eight cents; chickens, young stock or soft 
roasters, 20 to 23 cents, wholesale. Fowls, 
live, 15 cents. There is quite a good deal 
of milk made in this section, which of 
course goes to the city. Farmers at pres¬ 
ent get 4% cents, and I think the retail 
price in the city is from seven to nine 
cents. n. w. r. 
Connecticut. 
Cows bring from $25 to $60, as to qual¬ 
ity. One large sale of Jersey cows brought 
an average of about $25 per head; they 
were a good herd but the breed was not 
in demand. Horses of heavy and good 
build bring from $200 to $250 each ; light 
horses from $100 to $150. Ilay, Timothy, 
$16; clover, mixed, $12.50. Silage is never 
sold here, neither is manure. What ma¬ 
nure is drawn from town is given in ex¬ 
change for bedding. Not much milk sold 
here except to supply the small towns ; the 
milkman gets six cents per quart. Most 
of the farmers sell the cream to the cream¬ 
eries ; they are getting 36 cents per pound 
for the butter fat. Wheat, red, 90 cents 
per bushel; oats, 46 cents; beans, $2.10. 
This is quite a center for the production of 
beans and sugar beets; there are five 
sugar factories near here. w. a. C. 
DE LAVAL Cream and 
Butter Triumph as Usual 
At National Dairy Show 
Cream and butter produced through the use of DE LAYAL 
CREAM SEPARATORS made the usual clean sweep of all 
Highest Awards at the great 1911 National Dairy Show 
(including the annual convention of the National Buttermakers 
Association) held in Chicago, October 26th—November 4th, 
just as has always been the case since the organization of the 
National Association in 1892. 
WHOLE MILK CREAMERY BUTTER 
The sweepstakes or highest award in this class was won by | 
A. J. Anderson, Otisco, Minn., with a score of 97.50, who 
says; “I have been using De Laval separators for ten years 
and would not think of using any other. ’’ 
FARM SEPARATOR BUTTER 
The sweepstakes in the gathered cream factory made butter 
class was won by R. O. Brye, of the Readstown Creamery Co., 
Readstown, Wis., with a score of 97.38, this prize winning 
butter being made from the cream of farm patrons using 
De Laval separators exclusively. 
Mr. Brye says; U I was raised on a dairy farm, where my 
father used a De Laval separator, and my own separator 
experience covers a period of twenty years. I have found 
the De Laval machines everything that is claimed for them.” 
HIGHEST PRIZE CREAM EXHIBIT 
The highest award for cream was made to Nichols Bros., 
Bloomfield, Ky., with a score of 98.80, who say: “If we didn’t 
use the best separator we could not luwe made this record. 
Our experience has proved the De Laval the only separator 
that ‘delivered the goods’.” 
DE LAVAL PRODUCTS ALWAYS SUPERIOR 
Would-be competitors are naturally forced to make many 
claims lor their separators. But the superiority of De Laval 
cream and butter, as evidenced by the winning of all highest 
prize awards the world over for twenty years, is something so 
overwhelming as to be indisputable and unanswerable even 
by the most reckless would-be competitor. 
The De Laval Separator Co. 
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Milwaukee, 
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U 
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Write a postal NOW ! 
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$ 97 . 25 ^ 
Minneapolis 
Minn* 
HiTSELMAN PENCE 
Sold direct to you at factory 
prices on 30 days trial. Save 
the dealers profit. Farm, Hog 
and Poultry Fence at from 
1 1% CENTS A ROD UP. 
AH wires are heavily galvanized 
80 rod spool of Ideal galvanized 
Barbed Wire $1.40. Write 
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100 different styles and heights of fencing 
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selling the Automatic Combination To< 1 in 
your home county. A Fence Builder’s Tool, 
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Used by Farmers, Teamsters, in Factories, 
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Send no money. Name county where you live. 
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Box ISO Bloomfield, Ind. 
