Deseret evening news. [volume] (Great Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1867-1920, 1907-08-20
BUTTER FAMINE
FOR NEXT WINTER.
Buyers Claim That Combination
Has Forced Up Price in
Midsummer.
DEALERS ENTER A DEFENSE.
They Assert That Cream is Very
Scarce and Can't BE Had ut For
mer Price--Ralse Promised.

Salt Lake has heard much of coal
famine. The growing probability is
that to the coal famine must be added
this winter butter famine The little
festive pound package that tips the
scales anywhere between IS and Is
ounces, and never gets within an ounce
of full pound, is already up to what
a year or two ago would be considered
the midwinter figure. 1t is now retail
Ing at 50 cents, and complaint is heard
from almost every Embarrassing center
that the quality is rapidly deteriorating
The reason for the deterioration is
given that the cows are now taking to
the weed patches, as the grass Is be-
coming Drowned and dead, and Is no
longer so available as earlier In the sea-
son.
Why the price should soar in the
heart of summer season, when grass
is more plentiful than ever before, and
every natural reason should tend to
make production cheap is one of the
mysteries to the butter purchaser.
Consequently the butter trust" gets
the blame, and it comes In large pack
ages with no effort to trim pound
weight down to 13 ounces.
iPCN7 i4NNf Aiil Il ANiC'SS'
Restaurant keepers recall that II or
more years ago the western cattle
market failed. the retail butchers and
grocers in Salt Lake boosted the price
of meat to meet famine standards, and
then Kept II there ever afterwards
whether beef was high or beef was low,
by some sort of a combination that Is
generally spoken of as the butchers
and grocers' trust" and they make Il
-. sA1s
Lake butcher shops that have tried to
break this scedule have been boycott
ted, and their supply cut off, also that
butchers who are willing to break 1t to
regular customers have to do so with
out publicly announcing the fact. They
also point out that meat in Salt Lake
Is higher than in Butte, even, where
the union spirit is at tbs strongest,
and higher than Denver or Anacoda,
or Provo or Murray, where Salt LAX
ers began to pay 20 cents in car fare
for daily trips because they could more
than save 1t on dollar order, n year
ago.
Now they approach the butter prob
lem, asking II it Is not the same kind
of a combination that shoots the price
UP, and points out that grass is plen-
tiful and that the cost of keeping cows
should now be at its cheapest instead
OF at its highest.
ONLY WAY TO BREAK 1T.
To suhstantiate the claim that the ex-
ira money now asked for butter goes
into profit instead of into cost. Geo.
Morgan of the Vienna Cafe, who has
been buying butter for II years or more,
declares that the Faust combination
here is one 1t is impossible to break
except through importations from the
middle west, and that a move towards
.,t.1 ell II.
meet hearty favor among the people
on whom the price has recently been
boosted.
SOME COMPARISONS.
a schedule of prices maintained in
Denver shows first class "Diadem'
brand butter, only three per cent water.
instead of 16 per cent which il Is
claimed the local product runs, at 81
cents per pound. ranch butter at %
cents per pound, good table butter at
% cents. and Rose" Creamery at ~
cents.
When this schedule was shown to j.
n. Parker, manager OF the Elgin Dairy,
Creamery and Supply company. he de-
clared that there was no butter trust
WHY PRICE WAS RAISED.
I'VE raised the price OF butter" he
said. Ito get more cream. People had
none for sale at the old prices, and the
price OF cream varies with the price of
butter.
"The famine in butter is due to the
famine in cream, and there simply is
not enough produced to meet the de-
mand. II these people can get outside
butter cheap let them do 1t. You must
not forget that hay is up to SIS per ton.
and bran Is UP. and that farmers are
finding more remuneartive ways of
tI.a,, Il
ing cows at the present price of hay
and bran. l look for many farmers
who have been FEEDING this summer to
quit when winter comes. and that will
make conditions much worse"
UP TO so CENTS A POUND.
The Retail Grocer paper publish
ed in the interests of the grocers and
butchers. predicts another boost I'm
butter TO be 80 cents a pound whole
sale in that market, Therefore he does
not look for relief from that section.
although he says local butter cannot
get over two cents ahead of the San
Francisco or Denver markets on ac-
count OF the fact that butter can be
shipped in for about two cents per
pound.
GUESsES ARE DUE.
These various views of the situation
leave the public to guess what the price
will be and whether there viii be any
at all at any price, when winter really
sets in. The butter buyer blames the
trade combination, the butter handler
blames the milk producer, and the milk
producer blames the hay and bran
manipulators, while they fall back on
the recourse that the west Is growing In
people faster than in resources. and
that more hay land, more dairies. and
more development IN the live stock
business generally will be necessary be-
fore and relief can be expected,