The Lebanon express. (Lebanon, Linn County, Or.) 1887-1898, 1891-05-08
Farm Notes.
The palrymen coml,lne.

isting between the leading dairymen
of the state and their middlemen in
San Francisco have not been of that
! pleasant sort essential to mutual salts.
faction. The dairymen have claimed
that their efforts to furnish the market
with pure butter have come to naught
through the custom of the commission
men in grossly adulterating the
product after its delivery to them,
and the result is that there is, they
say, hardly pound of pure butter in
San Francisco. The dairymen, after
vainly protesting for years against
Ithese methods, have at last decided
10 take the disposition of their.product
into their own hands and carry war
into the territory of the commission
men.
meeting of some of the larger butter
manufacturers has been held in San
Francisco and call issued for a gen
eral convention of dairymen at the
Commercial hotel on Monday, June 1.
One of the gentlemen who was present
at this meeting and who ships thou
sands OF pounds of butter every week
to San Francisco explained the object
of the convention to a reporter.
The adulteration of our butter"
he said, not only reflects upon the
honesty of the manufacturer, but it
overstocks the market and demor-
Allies prices. In butter, as in every
thing else, the supply regulates the
price, and you can easily see the effect
in the buying price when ten-thou
sand-pound shipment is one-third
aduIterated and retailed out as the
pure article. Down goes the market
and the dairymen suffer while the
commission men pocket the extra
profits.
another serious complaint we
have to make is the fraud practiced
by commission men in their sales.
This alone entails IA loss of thousands
of dollars each year to the dairymen.
Our protests have been 10 no purpose,
and now we propose to dispense with
the middlemen and handle our own
produce. Our plan is to establish a
be a central point for distribution. II
the commission men wish to deal with
us it is their privilege, but they will
have TO accept our terms and CON
ditions Nearly all the dairymen in
the state are interested, and we expect
to have them all represented at the
convention.
The commission men regard the
proposed federation with indifference.
One of them said: "The claim of the
dairymen that their butter is adul-
terated is ridiculous. There is not a
factory for such purpose in the state,
and it would take the profits of ten
wears of business to establish one. To
mix butter and oleomargarine with
out the aid of certain chemicals and
machinery is simply impossible. Ii
the dairymen expect to freeze us out
they will discover their mistake when
we begin to lay eastern butter down
for cents a pound cheaper than they
can put California butter on the
market. / am not much alarmed at
the prospect
The revenue officers assert that
large quantities of oleomargarine
have been brought into the state since
January. What has become of it?
ask the farmers. Nobody who has
it can be found.
As for eastern butter being put on
the market cheaper than California
butter, the commission men have
been selling all they could of it, and
they can't sell more. The consumers
of California fresh roll butter will not
eat eastern butter, no matter how
cheap. The daiTymen can control the
and deal directly with the
retailer, at cost, if not with the con-
and save the commission
mems profits.