16 
ILLINOIS STATE DAIRYMEN’S ASSOCIATION. 
improved twenty-five per cent, in a single year by such a concert of action 
among grocerymen as would render it impossible for a man to dispose o 
fifth-rate butter at a second rate price, and insure to the man who would 
make first-rate butter & first-rate price. 
Butter that could be sold on the Elgin Board of Trade to-day for 
thirty-three cents, would not, in the Aurora market, bring over twenty- _ 
seven cents; while some of the butter that will be sold in Aurora to-day 
for twenty-five cents, could not be sold at all on the Board of Trade, or, 1 
sold, would not bring more than seventeen or eighteen cents; 
’ Now the man that makes the thirty-three cent butter loses six cents 
per pound on his butter, and the money is given as a premium to the man 
who makes eighteen cent butter. Then you will hear the grocerymen talk 
loud, in a general way, (they seldom mention names,) because the people do 
not learn to make good butter. . 
If you really make a first-class article and your grocery trade is large, 
perhaps you may succeed in getting one cent per pound above the grocery 
market price, but the offer will always be made in a whisper, and will be 
accompanied by the injunction to say nothing about it, as it would offend 
Mr. B., your neighbor, who did not receive the extra cent per pound or 
his butter. 
I repeat and emphasize the statement, that grocerymen, as a rule, do 
not buy butter on its merits. 
A lady of my acquaintance told me that she took butter into the 
Aurora market which she knew to be poor butter—very poor. It was 
made from bitter cream, and was similar in color to red chalk. let s e 
received for it the highest grocery market price, and the buyer even to 
her that it was first-class butter. 
An acquaintance of mine who had been buying butter, and upon whose 
hands quite an amount of poor butter had accumulated, disguised himself 
as a farmer, hired a pair of mules, and took part of it into the Aurora market, 
where, armed with a kerosene oil can and a sugar bucket, he oflered it tor 
sale. The ruse was a success. He received for it several cents per pound 
more than the butter would have brought had it been sold upon its merits. 
He bought a gallon of kerosene and ten dollars worth of sugar. Fearing 
to repeat the experiment upon the same ground, he hired a Swede to mar ret 
the remainder of the accumulated stock, who did it with nearly equal 
success. If you make poor butter, then, take your kerosene oil can along, 
and ask the price of butter at the corner grocery. 
But a change for the better can never be effected in this matter except 
