The news & observer. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1894-current, 1899-11-12
over their property in exchange fl
some of his spot cash.
IN A COUNTRY STORE.

IN a COUNTRY S1OtE.
Accordingly, their sign came down
in 1865 and the name of John Newman
adorned the door. 1t never came down
again until about a year ago, although
it was damaged twice by fire; but each
time Mr.. Newman succeeded in bringing
a new stock of goods within three days
after the fires had left him little more
than heaps of ashes.
when COWS first attracted Mr.. New
mant attention as means of accumu-
lating riches he ventured with only a
score of good mixers. They, however,
gave sufficient milk to keep a small fac
tory running, for which a little brook
from a spring turned the wheel which
in turn drove the churn. Gradually he
increased the number of his herd. Soon
the herd included all the bovine aristo-
Gratis in the immediate Elgin district
naughty, superb animals, which drink
nothing but warm water and eat pre-
pared food in the winter and feast on
clover blossoms in the summer. In
course of time every old b1indle Within
a radius of fifty miles was contributing
her creamiest store TO Mr.. Newman's
butter factory, while cows in other sec
tons many miles removed were working
for him as well. To-Day his bovine EN-
ployes number at least 10000, and their
products are disposed of in fifty-five
towns. Every morning at daylight there
is a hustle and hustle in $500 farm
houses as the brawny milkmen go forth
with big tin pals. The milk is placed
in immense cans, and long before the
whistle sounds for the workmen in the
cities to march to their shops this VASE
army of dairy farmers is rafting over
the roads i'll the understanding country,
bound for one of the fifty-fve factories
which Mr.. Newman built or bought.
''At the intake doors the lines of wa
CONS form, and the contents of $4,000
cans are poured into fifty-fiye watts, from
which machines whirl off the cream in
steady streams, rejecting the blue rem
nant with two or three times the ac-
curacy of a dairymaid armed with n
spoon.
The butter king does not buy his
milk like we city householders. who take
water and all in ours. A man in each
Of the factories, who has learned the
scientific process, takes from each can
every day sample which is placed in
a bottle, bearing the patrons name The
aggregate samples of week are tested
for their percentage of butter fat
cream. 1t has been computed-and this
proportion may not be exactly accurate,
but it will serve as an illustration-tha
100 pounds of the richest milk from the
best kind of cows produce five pounds
of butter The farmer who places warm
water before his mixers in the cold
season and feeds them with more care
than he does the bipeds who surround
his own table, and pays as much for
each of his mixers as he would for a
good horse, often has milk-test up to the
figures used as basis. But the slip
shod farmers contribution. for instance.
may not test over two pounds of cream
to the 100 pounds of milk. 1t thus hap
pens that the semi-monthly checks COW
ering exactly the same quantity of milk
are widely divergent The butter king
wants the cream, not the water. His
system, which is being adopted in all
sections Of the country, has been one or
the prominent factors in making the Eli
gin district the mast famous butter
country in the United States-a fame
which puts its products on sale in the
largest cities of England.
''There are several other butter men
in the Elgin district, with smaller sys-
TENS of creameries, operating in about
the same territory, and the panic through
which the country and the farmers
passed some years ago had barely any
effect on the thousands of shrewd tilers
of the soil whose crops and acres are
devoted to the cows. But butter is n
which is the last dispensed
with when the practice of rigid econo-
my is enforced. The factory men must
supply the demand. The amount of
milk to meet the butter demand never
The farmer haalls as much
in hard times as when times are -four
ishing, his only risk being the posi-
bic necessity of a change from a small
factory to which he may have been en-
ticed by the promise of few more
cents, only to find in the end he is to
receive no pay whatever.
PROSPEROUS FARMERS.
1T is an axiom among travelling men
that the towns surrounded by dairy
farms invariably have the most ready
money at all times, on the simple theory
that the farmer gets cash for his pro-
while the farmer who confines himself
to the raising of cereals has practically
only one market time each year, with
mis- money in lump, which he does not
spend. A bill of goods sold in milk
town is usually as good as gold, barring
the regular percentage of persons who
never meet an obligation, whether or
not they are able to do so.
THE butter kings aggregate fItms
contain about 100000 acres from which
he receives sufficient milk TO make be-
tween 100000 and 10000 600 pounds
of butter annually This bulk is wholly
beyond the comprehension of man,
whose cake usually weighs one pound,
or the metropolitan bachelor, who thinks
the butter comes to his Broadway res
taurant in small chunks about Inc size
of checkers. One days output would
spread slice of bread as big as the
arena of Greater New York: yea, and
spread it good and thick, to-. A years
output would butter the con- mt, while
stack of the tubs used to holl the
output would build an overlapping fence
around the great pyramid Therefore
it is no wonder that Mr.. Newman was