ILLINOIS STATE DAIRYMEN’S ASSOCIATION. 
43 
5. The facilities for caring for and storing the products were 
insufficient, and hence sales were compulsory and disadvantageous. 
6. The prices charged for manufacturing the products were too 
high. 
7. Sending the products to commission houses to be sold, was 
damaging. 
8. Middlemen—to whose fingers some of the proceeds, in pass¬ 
ing, always adhere—were to numerous. 
I shall not dilate upon these several reasons separately. The 
brief sketch given of the way and by whom the work at the factories 
was done will convince dairymen of the soundness of most of these 
reasons. As to the quantity of the products, in the absence of accu¬ 
rate statistics which might and I think ought to be furnished by the 
proprietors of factories, no definite knowledge is attainable. It is a 
matter of grave importance to the dairyman whether 9 or 13 pounds 
of milk were at the factory used to make a pound of cheese, and 
whether 22^ or 32 pounds of milk were consumed to make a pound 
of butter. 
My experience, observation and conversation with proprietors 
of factories leads me to believe that on an average not less than 13 
pounds of milk were consumed to make a pound of cheese, and 30 
pounds to make a pound of butter. The waste in this particular 
alone has been large. 
In quality the products—particularly cheese—have been notori¬ 
ously inferior. Skim cheese has been the make generally. This 
cheese is made from milk divested of the cream, or most of it. To 
this short-sighted and pernicious practice of making skim cheese I 
attribute in a large degree the depression in the dairy business. 
Skim cheese is unfit for human food. It was well calculated to de¬ 
ceive and has deceived the public; it looked fair and found sales at 
a price far in advance of its value. Proprietors of factories, commis¬ 
sion men, dealers and dairymen made present money unjustly out of 
it the latter the least, however. Consumption of this cheese de¬ 
creased with the increase of knowledge of its demerits, and now it 
can scarcely be sold except in a market where it is supposed to be 
good cheese. The damaging financial results do not affect wholly, as 
it ought, those only who are engaged in manufacturing and selling it; 
it extends much further, and in its downfall it drags not only good 
cheese but the whole dairy interest. Unfortunately, like all wide- 
