The Plymouth tribune. (Plymouth, Ind.) 1901-1911, 1906-06-07
BUTTER SCORING CONTESTS
What Purdue Thinks of the Benefits
Derived From Them.

are manifold, and may conveniently
be grouped as follows:
1. These contests stimulate the in
terest and enthusiasm of our dairy
men and butter-makers in their work
In order to succeed in any business
or profession we must have our bust
ness or profession at heart. We
must feel that, for us there is no
profession of equal value and of equal
opportunities as our chosen profess
sion The lawyer who wishes to push
to the front and to be recognized by
the highest courts in the land must
be imbued with that enthusiasm for
his work that stops at no obstacles,
knows no fears, feels no fatigue, and
that makes him willingly sacrifice
time and money to gain the knowl-
edge that brings success The sue
cessful scientist and investigator is q
man who gladly denies himself many
of the worldly pleasures for the sake
of devoting his time and energy to his
research and his experiments, and
who thinks nothing of burning mid
night oil day after day in order to OBJ
tain the necessary facts for the solu-
ton of his problems The soldier can
truly serve his country, only when
he is so filled with the spirit of en-
thusiasm and patriotism for his coun-
try, that he follows the flag unflinch-
ingly through fire and water in spite
of dangers and untold hardships The
dairyman, the butter-maker, is cap
able of grasping the many and great
opportunities which his profession
holds out to him, and to rise to the
summit of his profession, only in
proportion to the enthusiasm HI rs
into his daily work. Interest, e, I.l-
siasm and ambition to learn more,
and to become efficient in turning
out that quality of butter that is al
ways in demand, must be his daily
companions.
3 These contests start the butter
maker to think. The hardest work a
man can do is to think. Laziness
is an universally recognized weakness
of mankind. We are too often in
clined to follow the line of the least
resistance, that is, to do the easy
ox.4 1o< IL ell A,k
tie with the difficulties, or, speaking
very plainly, we are lazy as we dare
to be- The butter-maker is not ex-
empt from this weakness. 1t is an
easy matter for him to drop into his
routine work, assuming that he is
doing his duty when the commission
merchant accepts his butter without
criticism. The successful butter-mak-
er must ever be on his guard, his
mind should continually be alert to
the new problems that come up, he
should think and plan how to man
age and advise his patrons in order
TO obtain better quality of milk or
cream, how to improve and perfect
his method of making starters, oil
ripening and churning under the con-
ditions peculiar to the locality of his
creamery, etc
3. In the third place these contests
give the butter-maker straight and
unprejudiced information concerning
the true quality of his butter The
butter is scored and criticised by
competent and unbiased judges, who
have no possible way of knowing by
whom the butter submitted wa:
made By comparing the score of III:
butter with the scores Of the ot!lei
contestants he finds out his actua
standing as butter-rnaker. If hi.
score is comparatively low, and h,
has the get there" spirit in him, b.
will resolve to put to work all the
lever at his disposition to improv,
and make better showing next time
if his score is high he will leave
nothing undone to maintain the re
putation gained and, if possible, tc
climb higher
4. The criticisms offered by thu
judges joint out to him where hi:
butter is "off" what the probabl,
cause of the defect is and how h,
may overcome it. AS it is impossible
even with the most perfect appliance
of modern warfare to fight the fo'
without knowing his Whereabouts, Sc
is the buttermaker unable to over
come the defects. and improve TIL
quality of his butter, unless he know
what the trouble is, and where h
may find it. The criticism and sug
gestions that are sent to every com
peting butter-maker at the conclusion
of the contest will help him to 10
cate the trouble, and to prevent tn
recurrance of similar defects Butte
with a weak body, notified butter
and off f1avors, defects which are tn
common stumbling blocks of man,
of our butter-makers, can be, in mos
cases prevented and overcome, if onl
the IMAM behind the gum will submit
his butter to the impartial judgmen
of competent judge and take advan
tage Of the advice and criticism offer
ed.
s. These butter scoring contes,
help to raise the quality of the butte
manufactured in our state. The natur
al result of better knowledge b.
the individual buttermaker of tn
causes of the butter defects, their pre-
vention and remedy, is that tn
creameries employing these progress
i've and competent butter-makers ar