33 
ILLINOIS STATE DAIRYMEN’S ASSOCIATION. 
more difficult from its close proximity to the cheese-making 
room. Let us so control matters that our milk, whilst 
setting for cream, shall be in a clear, sweet room, and, 
when this is done, followed by all the requisites of good 
butter-making, we will have butter that will keep a 
reasonable length of time and still meet the requirements 
of the trade. When made, we should at once make up our 
minds whether we want to put it upon the market at the 
ruling prices, or hold it for better. If to be sold, get it into 
the market just as soon as possible. Sell at what you would 
consider a low figure, at home, rather than put it into a hot 
car to go a long distance to the place of your commission 
man, exposed to delays and heat between cars and 
store—“alll at your risk,”—and after being received in store 
not cared for in a proper manner,—for but few mortals will 
care for the goods of others as though they werp their 
own. If we should think it better to hold for better prices, 
put it into the nearest cool, clean, dry cellar, with good 
strong brine covering top; preferring this to the damage 
incurred in transit and the expense of what, in many 
instances, proves to be worthies, damp, cold storage. 
Then again, it seems to us that we have fallen into a 
system of marketing our butter and cheese which if per¬ 
sisted in will work ruin to this industry. Chicago is oui 
natural distributing point, and its commission men, recog¬ 
nizing this fact, have taken advantage of it and entered into 
combinations compelling the manufacturers to commission 
their goods j and so well are these combinations held 
together that we can never sell outright unless there is more 
to be made for them. The time was when the keeper of 
the cows sold his milk to the manufacturer and the 
manufacturer sold his goods to the dealer, but now the 
producer of the milk commissions his product to the man¬ 
ufacturer, and the manufacturer commissions the goods to 
Chicago dealers, and Chicago dealers commission the goods 
to dealers in New York, and the dealers in New York 
commission them to parties in Liverpool or Glasgow; and 
all the breakage, leakage, shrinkage, freight, cartage, and 
the three or four commissions, come out of the producer of 
the milk—and no wonder small dividends follow. If we 
are to consign our goods, let us get just as near the con¬ 
sumer as possible. The time has come when any man of 
common intelligence can open a correspondence with good 
