Ashtabula weekly telegraph. (Ashtabula, Ohio) 1880-1886, 1880-04-30
OIeOmargarine.
American DaIrymen.

just ut this time it is interesting to
glance at few facts in relation 70 this
product. To hear the remarks Of some Of
the butter dealers one would think that
the dairy butter WAS about 10 be wiped out
Of existence by a new and iniQuitOus COM
pound akin tO arsenic and nitrO-glycerine.
The quantity Of oleOmargarine made Is
greatly magniied; the natural downward
course OF the butter market which comes
at this season every year, almost without
exception, is held up as a warning. and ac-
cOrding to these prophets, nothing but
dire disaster is in store for dairymen. Let
us see what facts we have TO 70 by. Oleo-
margarine has been manufactured 10 con-
siderable extent in this country for four
years; last year, IN the face Of its manu-
facture, prices OF butter advanced one
hundred per cent, and held the advance as
well as in any former year. In Europe
oleomargarine has been largely manufac-
tured for Ten years, during which there
have been the usual fluctuations in the
market, but full average quotations for
fine butter have ruled, and this i'm the face
Of largely increased production OF the
better Qualities, caused by the competition
Of oleomargarine with poor butter. What
does this pFove? Simply that as the pro-
duction OF fine butter increased. the con-
sumption also increased (people eat more
butter when the quality is good). The poor
er classes eat oleomargarine because IL Is
better than poor butter, and the middle
and higher classes also obtained a better
quality OF dairy butter and increased their
consumption accordingly. Thus ell class
es we're benefited, ana we believe our ex-
perience will be the same in this country.
| Prices Of butter may not rule so high dnr
| ing the next ten years as they have during
| the last ten, but people should remember
what the prices were before the war. when
the quantity produced was vastly less than
now. Then dairying In the great West
was unknown, and in the East was restrict.
| ed to a comparatively limited area.
There are now oleomargarine factories
at Boston, Providence New Haven. New
York, Philadelphia, Baltimore. Pittsburp.
| Cincinnati, Louisville, Indianapolis. Chi
cago, St. Louis and New Orleans. Their
maximum Of production has. probably.
been nearly reached, yet they have hardly
made an impression upon the butter mar
ket. Their product is sold by majority Of
wholesale grocers and butter dealers on its
merits. for precisely what it is, and it will,
probably, not be long before nearly every
body will be handling it, and that it will
assume a recognized place in the list of
food products, as 1t has in Europe, where
it is sold at retail as we'll as wholesale upon
its merits. There it is exhibited at dairy
fairs, and even sold within those precincts.
How does this compare with the ridiculous
attitude Of American dairymen and deal
ers in dairy products, who have heretofore
treated It as il it we're an epidemic disease
The Scientific American, in a recent ar
ticlP, sensibly remarks:
The complaints Of farmers against oleo-
margarine are unfounded in fact, and are
kept up only by appeals to unthinking
prejudice. 0leomargarine is as much a
farm product as beef or butter, and is as
wholesome as either. It Is as legitimate a
commercial product as tallow or lard,
which might be as we'll prescribed as oleo-
margarine. The only argument advanced
by its opponents which has any validity. is
that it is sometimes sold as butter; this
practice, however, has been greatly exag-
gerated; wholesale dealsl sell it forwhat it
is. and the number Of T, I'll dealers who do
the same is daily incre5gng. Oleomar-
garine chiefly interferes with the sale Of
common grades Of butter, TO which it is far
| superior, and II is mainly dealers in this
grade OF butter who raise an outery
against the new product; although this out
cry has been taken advantage Of by parties
outside OF the dairy interest to curry favor
with dairymen and serve their own selfish
ends"
Some people may consider it enterpris-
ing for a salt house to bolster mp a deelin-
ing brand OF salt by becoming alarmists
upon the oleomapgarine question, and it
might have worked il they had not over
done the business of instigating meetings.
sending out circulars. and generally under
taking to use everybody who would con-
sent to be blinded by their apparent zeal
and to grind their little business axe; but
will this pay in the end? Do dairymen OF
dealers serve their own interests by accept
ing such champions and their statements
HI