doubts this, skim the last tenth of the cream, and churn it separately, and he will doubt no longer.

The sales of this kind of milk for the past four years have been as follows:

This business, unless near a city, is decreasing in profit, because of the expense of transportation and sharper competition from new creameries.

The payments to patrons by this creamery from its beginning may be condensed as follows:

Paid to patrons for milk, 1870 to 1880, ten years,

1880 to 1886, seven years,

$204,076.51

275,189.10

During the past sixteen years the company has paid seven per cent. interest on the investment to the stockholders. The average price paid for milk for the past twelve years has been 3.18 cents per quart. The number of patrons in 1883 was 64; in 1888, patrons, 44. Amount of milk received, about 1,000,000 quarts. may well be questioned whether any other farming business could have been taken up which would have brought in so much

It

money to so many of our farmers, without materially interfering with their other farming operations, and yet so safe, with nothing at all speculative in its character. All the time, too, it has contrib. uted largely in bringing up and enriching the farms. And yet how many towns and villages there are in this State in which nothing of this sort is done, and the farmers are still asking if it is worth while to try it. I doubt if there is any other greater power at work in this State, in bringing up the feeble and scattered farms and teaching the farmers the value of co-operation.

Should the sale of skimmed milk become unprofitable we shall probably take up cream gathering, or use the separator. The merits of cream gathering are very great, and will be fully set forth by several gentlemen at this meeting. They can tell a clear and undeniable story as to what they have done.

There are but few separators at work in this State, but they are very widely used in Vermont and New Hampshire, and are as popular there as cream-gathering is here. Briefly stated, I have managed a separator for eighteen months at the Elmwood Creamery. We made by it from six to eight per cent. more butter than by the Cooley creamer at the same place, and from twelve to six. teen per cent. more than by the deep open setting. During a year we made as much from the sale of the butter alone, without reference to the skimmed milk, as we could make from the deep setting butter, with the skimmed milk selling at one fourth cent a quart. We finally sold the separator because there was a large and increasing new milk and skimmed milk trade, and the other butter seemed a little better.

Messrs. Fitz Brothers of Burrillville, R. I., write me that they can make ten per cent. more butter by their separator than from gathered cream, and they have had both systems on trial for over a year. I have the same testimony from Westboro, Mass.

The separator also cleans the milk from all solid impurities as no other system will. It will hardly be believed how much of - not dirt but filth there is in ordinary milk until one has seen the interior of a centrifugal separator after it has been working for some hours. With improved methods of treatment, it is now claimed in Vermont that as many premiums have been given to separator butter as to cream-gathered butter, whenever they have come in competition.

Were I called upon to-day as to which method I should adopt, I should be governed by the locality and the wishes of the farmer patrons. If the territory to be covered was large, I should choose cream gathering. It costs the farmer much more to buy the Cooley apparatus and fit up with ice, etc., for home work, but he keeps the skimmed milk at home. With the separator his cans cost him little, but he will have to draw his milk to the factory and his skimmed milk home if he wants it.

Along the lines of railroad which carry milk to New York, where at times there is a surplus of milk, it would be very useful and economical to have small buildings with separators at stations, and collect the cream at a few central points to make up the butter.

And now a few words as to the future. Within the next ten years there will probably be 150 creameries in this State. In New England there may be 500 to 1,000. How soon will the business be overdone? Even now, we find in Hartford, where the products of a number of creameries is marketable, there is a good deal of competition, and a sharp and often unnecessary cutting down of prices. What will be the result, when twice as many are struggling (each one making the best butter in the State") to steal away the market from their neighbors.

Here comes in the "survival of the fittest," as has already been found in New York and Pennsylvania. In New York it has resulted in consolidation of management one person or firm some

times controlling ten to twenty factories.

Also in the formation of

boards of trade, where buyers and sellers can meet weekly.

Better still, we should bestir ourselves now, to excel other parts of the country in the quality of our product. This can only be done by learning our business better- by keeping only the best cows, and giving the best feed and care. Probably dairy farmers' institutes, such as now held in Wisconsin, would result in the great. est good as there is always a market for the best products.

The laughable song, "The Farmer and the Pigeon," was then sung by Mrs. Cornish, which caused a great deal of merriment, after which the Chairman introduced Mr. D. J. ELLSWORTH of Windsor.

AGR.-16

THE WINDSOR CREAMERY.

BY DAVID J. ELLSWORTH.

The Windsor Creamery Company was organized in May, 1885, and may be said to have been the outgrowth of a necessity, resulting from the increasing burden of butter making and marketing, which in general is a severe tax upon the farmer and his family. What system should we plan for? We naturally turned our at. tention to the Wapping Creamery and its remarkable success, that being conducted upon the cream-gathering plan., We set out with the determination to make the Windsor Creamery first-class and a paying one. We did not need to experiment, where others had failed or dragged along with varied success.

That known as the Cooley System was adopted, for some of the considerations I shall mention. The time allowed in this discussion being very brief, I shall note but few points, realizing that this audience are sufficiently posted on the history and successes of the past few years of creameries operating upon the cream-gathering plan, as not to be in doubt what course to pursue should they be interested in starting a new creamery or in advocating a change from the old.

One of the objections urged against the old or whole-milk system was, the time and labor required for the delivery of milk once and twice daily to the factory, Sundays not excepted. This is certainly a serious tax upon the time of the producer, as well as a great wear and tear upon his team. Had the alternative been presented us of delivering our milk daily to the factory or of continuing the burden of butter making, we certainly should have chosen the latter. The removal of all milk from the farm seemed a serious objection. We are coming more and more to realize the advantage of rearing our own cows, increasing our herds, and thereby increase the fertility of our farms.

Facts and figures are not wanting to show that patrons furnishing cream have received as much, and in many instances more, for their cream while retaining the skim-milk, than others who have delivered whole milk to the factories, going with it twice a day in summer, and once daily in winter.

Having ascertained in various ways some things that we wanted as well as some things we did not want a very important factor to take into the account. we set out to find a location for our

creamery building. We wanted a very good one, and we finally got it, but in looking about we soon realized that Windsor, in the vicinity of the railroad and its depot, was very destitute of such places. We had to pay well for it but at $300, with $150 more added, for grading, etc., it has been a better bargain for us than in many cases where land has been given.

I mention these things because our whole plant was a rather expensive one, and many good people, I suppose, have shaken their heads at the size of our capital. I have been informed lately that a new creamery company, that have just commenced butter mak

ing, have a capital of $4,500. I will repeat, that we consider a good location to be of paramount importance. A mistake here is beyond remedy. A dry soil, good drainage, good spring water, building ranging east and west, with a northern exposure for work rooms and ground floor, within a few rods of the main road and less than one-quarter of a mile to depot and express office, make for "The Windsor" what I believe to be the best located creamery in the State.

This was erected in the summer of '85, a substantial two-story