Thursday, April 10, 2014

Cortland Farmers' Club Discusses Oleomargarine (Part Two)



The Cortland News, Friday, March 9, 1883.
Farmers’ Club.
   Hon. D. E. Whitmore, in his address before the Club Feb. 24, ult., spoke substantially as follows:
   I have had but little time to consider the subject assigned me to discuss, on this occasion, to wit: F. B. Thurber's paper on oleomargarine, monopoly, etc., read before the State Dairymen's Association, and shall attempt no very elaborate discussion or criticism. I give Mr. Thurber the credit of handling his subject skillfully, but in a manner well calculated to deceive dairymen and to conceal the great power and influence of the artificial butter monopoly, in depressing the dairy interests of the country.
   It was evident in the tone of Mr. Thurber's paper and in his remarks in the subsequent discussion, that he is an oleomargarine man and a foreign salt man. He frankly admitted that the oleomargarine business is a monopoly and still he is the head and front and the recognized leader of the anti-monopoly movement in this State. The Thurber firm is aiding and abetting a monopoly which is a hundred fold more damaging to the dairy interests of the country, and to the best interests of the people, than has or can arise from any acts of railroad companies which F. B. Thurber is declaiming so vigorously.
   The manufacture of oleomargarine is a patented process, and consequently is strictly a monopoly, in the hands of a few individuals. The profit on this artificial butter is so large that the dealers in it can afford to undersell, whether the price of dairy butter is up or down. If oleomargarine competed only with rancid, store packed butter, no one would complain.
   Rancid, store packed butter, however, has nothing to do with this discussion. It is the ordinary dairies of Cortland county, and other parts of the country, that are most seriously feeling the heavy depression in the butter market, principally caused by the large quantity of artificial butter thrown upon the market. The butter that Mr. Thurber classes as poor is used to a greater or less extent in the manufacture of oleomargarine, and when mixed in small quantity with the oil of fat, and churned with milk, produces a product which he pronounces palpably superior to the butter used in the manufacture of the same.
   Oleomargarine is made from that part of fat of beeves, known as the caul, and from the fat that covers the small intestines, and not as many suppose from the suet. This fat is washed, reduced to a pulp, forced through a coarse sieve, leaving the more solid parts, then subjected for a time to a low degree of heat and afterwards to a powerful hydraulic pressure which forces out the oil. Stearine, tallow, and other refuse remain. This is then combined with a proportion one-fifth milk and churned about three-fourths of an hour, usually a small portion of butter being added, to aid in giving flavor. This fat can probably be bought at the present time at about 6 or 7 cents per pound, and the milk and butter used is so small that they must necessarily constitute a large percentage less than half the expense. The stearine left is at present worth only 10 cts. per lb. and from this large profit you can readily perceive why Mr. Thurber wishes the honest, hard-working dairyman to believe that the manufacture of oleomargarine, to use his own language, is a “great benefit to the dairy interest."
   A product made by combining butter, lard and milk, called I believe butterine, lardine or lard butter, bids fair to be a stronger competitor than oleomargarine. In New York I had a conversation with W. H. Totten, a wholesale produce dealer of that city and treasurer of the Produce Exchange, regarding this lard butter. He said the best manufacture of this article at the present time was more sought for and was bringing a better price than ordinary dairies such as came from Cortland or Chenango counties. The best manufacture is made by rendering the lard at a very low temperature, thus removing all disagreeable odors, and flavoring it by adding a quantity of the finest Elgin butter; and by churning in milk. Mr. Totten gave it as his opinion that lard butter is intrinsically worth more than oleomargarine as the lard it contained would be more valuable to bakers than oleo, when it had lost its butter flavor.
   Mr. Thurber in his paper placed the number of pounds of oleomargarine manufactured in 1881, at 17,000,000. My encyclopedia states that the number of pounds made per week, in 1881, in New York alone at 350,000 lbs., which in the year would amount to more than 17,000,000 lbs; or more than Mr. Thurber gave for the whole country. Hence I conclude that he was mistaken and that the whole product was in 1881 from 25 to [30] millions of pounds. Since 1881 the quantity manufactured has nearly doubled, and in all probability, during the past year, 40 to 50 millions of pounds of artificial butter of all kinds have been manufactured. Secretary Jenkins of the Royal Agricultural Society of England estimates the amount of artificial butter imported into England at "500,000 cwt." per anum, and declares that the effect of this competition upon the British dairy farmer is very serious; however, nobody could properly complain "if it were sold for what it is instead of for what it is not."
   I will not assert that pure, unadulterated oleomargarine, or butterine, is an unwholesome article of food, but I believe that large quantities that are adulterated are thrown upon the market in a condition unfit for food. Selling oleomargarine, or other similar compounds, as butter should be made a misdemeanor under our laws and punishable as such, in my opinion. Probably the best means to secure this end would be to tax the manufacturer about two cents per pound more or less, which in this State alone, the current year, would aggregate four or five hundred thousand dollars; and wholesale and retail dealers should be required to pay annually an adequate license fee.
   The time has arrived when dairymen must meet the issue now forced upon them by this artificial butter business. Dairymen of New York especially ought not to step back and let the West and even Pennsylvania take the market from them as they are doing at the present time. The last New York market reports quote Western and Pennsylvania creamery, fancy fresh, at 40 to 42 cents. To-day ordinary Cortland county dairies will not bring in New York more than 20 cents per pound on an average.
   New York dairymen can meet these issues only by improving the quality of their products so that they will stand No.1 in the market. They must market their products, to a great extent, as soon as made and the custom of holding butter three, six or eight months must be a abandoned. The dairy season must be continued nearly or quite the year round. At this time there are hundreds of western creameries in operation, also large numbers in southeastern Pennsylvania. Nearly all make fine, fancy, gilt-edged butter which is sold for 40 cents per pound and upwards as soon as it reaches market.
   A word as to Mr. Thurber's views regarding railroad companies as monopolists. I do not take much stock in his arraignment of the companies as oppressors of the people. They are not monopolists, according to the true definition of that term. No company in this State has exclusive control of either freight or passenger traffic. There is competition sufficient to prevent it, and all apprehensions of results seriously injurious to the public welfare from railroads are groundless.
   The truth is, all parts of the country are under great and lasting obligations to railroad companies for the powerful and effective aid rendered by them in developing the vast resources of the settled portions of our country, and the consequent unparalleled increase of wealth and diffusion of educational and religious influences, thus rendering our rapidly increasing population more independent, more prosperous and more contented than any other people. They may be unreasonable; and excessive in their demands in some cases; but that railroad companies are at present, or are to become in the future, sources of oppression to the people it is simply nonsense to assert.

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