St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1890-03-06
COOPERATIVE CREAMERlEs.
A Canadian Writer Gives Some
Data and Opinions.


The creamery. provides for the manu-
facture of milk into one Of the most
wholesome articles Of food, which
every one wants and likes, and which
can ne sent from the farm with the
largest profit to the man selling it,
From the milk yielded by the COWS OF
this province we make, in large Quanti-
ties, cheese-a product which is a
more concentrated and nourishing food
than butter is. | want usJ here to
show you the weakness Of our butter
making system, writes Prof. James w.
Robertson to the Farmers Advocate.
of the milk yielded by the COWS of this
province nearly as much Is converted
into butter as into cheese; there is not
much difference. Our cheese has won
for Canada the reputation of being one
of the finest cheese producing countries
in the world, while our butter has
earned for us the unenviable no.
toriety of sending to Eng
land the strongest butter received
there from any part of the world. There
must be something wrong, you see, IN
the way we do things, when we are not
able to earn as good a reputation for
producing butter as we have established
in connection with our exports Of cheese.
Let me cite to you the first mistake we
have made III regard to our butter
making operations. There was time
when we had no reputation as a cheese
making people; when the cheese was
made at home in the dairitS of the
in this province 80 As per cent is made
in the cheese factories and 10 per cent
in home dairies. You have there, in
my opinion, in that short set of figures,
the real reason why our cheeSe-naklng
business has attained such high repu-
tatiOn, while on the other hand, our
butter-making operations have secured
for us. in market reputation, only that
which too frequently characteriZes
the product itSelf-a bad odor. or
all the butter made in the prov
ince from the milk production of
nearly as many COWS as we used in
cheeSe-making operations, less than 3
per cent is made ia creamerieS. Less
than per cent in one case, as against
SO IS per cent in the other. Ii we had
this position in regard to butter-making
reversed. and only3 per cent of our but
ter were made at the farm diaries, we
would get much higher figures for our
total product. Let me examine still
further this making of 81 per cent of
our butter product in the farm ,lairles-
mostly small. Is that an econo-
mical and profitable way of producing
butter? To man who gives the matter
any serious consideration it at once be-
comes eviuent that it is not. The total
make of butter in the farm diaries OF
the province is estimated at over 30,000,-
coo pounds annually. l have taken
some pains to discover what amount OF
labor is employed in making that guam
ifxy of I'm fin mt
takes to make ten pounds of butter in
the home dairy, and L find that it takes
on the average just SIX times as much
labor to make pound of butter in small
dairy as it required to make pound i'll
a creamery. The amount of labor re-
Quired to make 30,000.0OO pounds OF but
ter in home diaries is equal 10 750.050
single days labor. whereas, If made in
creamerieS it would take less thar $780,
900 single days'l abor. You would have
$4,000 days OF ten hours each OF labor
to spare in the homes OF Ontario by hav-
ing this butter made in creamerIes.
Now, in this province we should be
proud, above all things, of the virtue,
industry, intelligence and beauty
of our women: and yet our farmers are
crushing the spirit out of their wives
and daughters by making them milk
COWS, set pans, churn butter and per-
IOrG all the heavy work incidental to
that process. This seems to be small
factor in our national prosperity, but it
Is really very important one, that the
women of our farms should have more
leisure for true womanly work, and
spend less of their time in producing
butter which sells for IL to II cents
a pound. the average price of the sum
mer dairy butter OF this province. L
havn't a word to say against the butter
these ladi IS make, but l say it is vast
ing labor to have large number Of
women doing that which one man could
do. Then, again. there is more than
six times as much capital invested in
dairy utensils in private diaries as would
furnish creameries with capacity to do
the same work. DO you suppose that
any manufacturer could run for any
length of time in competition with
another manufacturer producing
the same class Of goods if
he actually had to pay six
times as much for his labor, and to in
vest six times as much capital In his
machinery and plant as the other did?
He would be played out of business in
two weeks if he kept his books well,
and inside of short period whether he
kept books or not. Yet that is exactly
what buttermakers have been doing.
and they wonder why butter making
d es not pay. 1t can be made to pay,
but we mnst make our methods ecOnOm-
zeal.