The Nonpartisan Leader Newspaper, July 21, 1919, Page 10

Neutralized Cream Hit Government Solicitor Declares It Within Definition of Adulterated Butter BY A. B. GILBERT 7| ARMERS connected with co-op- erative creameries will probably find much satisfaction in a re- cent ruling by the solicitor of the department of agriculture that butter made from neutral- ized cream is adulterated. This means that legally the product of many of the centralizers competing with the co-operative creameries for cream must be labeled something else than just butter. The law evidently implies also that this butter, ' made from neutralized cream with the aid of cer- , tain chemicals, should bear an extra tax, but so far the internal revenue department has not acted :in that direction. The federal law of May 9, 1902 (32 Stat. 94), which reaffirmed the definition of adulterated but- | ter made in another law passed 16 years previously, ! defines the adulterated product thus: “Adulterated butter is hereby - defined to mean a grade of butter produced by mixing, reworking, rechurning in milk or cream, re- fining or in any way producing a uniform, purified or improved product from different- lots or par- cels of MELTED or UN- MELTED BUTTER OR BUTTERFAT, in which any acid, alkali, chemical or any | substance whatever is intro- } duced or used for the pur- l pose or with the effect of deodorizing or removing therefrom rancidity, or any butter or butterfat with l which there is mixed any 1 substance foreign to.butter as herein defined with the intent or effect of cheapen- " ing in cost, the product, or i any butter in the manufac- ture or manipulation of which a process or material is used with intent or effect of causing the absorption of abnormal quantities of wa- ter, milk or cream.” ¢ In his interpretation of this legal definition Solicitor William . M. Williams says: i “The question ‘arises as to | what is meant by ‘unmelted but- i terfat.’ It would seem that these { words can mean nothing other i than the fat which is in the milk {or cream. I have been unable : | to attribute any other meaning to these words. “Therefore, if alkali, with saltpeter, or either of these is added to cream with the effect of deodorizing or removing rancidity therefrom in the making of butter, such butter is ‘adulter-* it ated butter’ within the meaning of the above { quoted. statute and is also ‘adulterated butter’ I within the meaning of the food and drugs act, in that it consists in whole or in part of a filthy, putrid or decomposed animal substance.” i How any one could make any other interpreta- |/ tion of the law is difficult to understand. The men i who passed it first in 1886 were unusually definite i in- their legal language. In those days farmer in- il fluence was getting strong in the legislatures. They it were the days of the big farmer movements in the i West. A good deal of beneficial legislation was i passed to allay farmer discontent. : # Then the farmers forgot how they secured these % laws. The organizations were allowegi to die down E‘» under the weight of superficial political abuse and market. wire-pulling. Most of the laws were then re;gealed, . power of the _centralized 'af'ys_tem.’f not in fact but by failure to enforce. This has ‘given the trusts and competitors with farmer in- stitutions great advantages. And interests like the centralizers and the packers have capitalized them in full. : In commenting on the -decision of Solicitor Wil- liams the Dairy Record (St. Paul) says: “The position in which the neutralizers find them- selves in view.of the advice given the standards committee by its law officer is decidedly not the funeral of the country creamery men and the thou- sands of farmers owning these creameries, if they continue to stick together for their rights. Our federal butter laws are all right as far as they are concerned and all they have to do is to see to it that they stay on the statute books. “An effort will no doubt be made, in -one form or other and apparently from a neutral source,. to induce the country creameries to put their O. K. on a new law, but fortunately experience will have taught them by this time to exercise great care before they do anything of the kind. “The National Creamery Buttermakers’ associa- tion was ostensibly run for the benefit of the local creameries, still the last convention was asked to adopt a resolution defining butter in such a way that had it been adopted the association would have been on record in favor of selling butter made from neutralized cream without label and in violation of the laws. - The centralizers would have taken that resolution right to congress and used it right against the interests of the local creameries, still four of the five members of the resolution committee recommended this resolution and the officers discreetly were silent. The con- vention did not swallow it even though the leading lights of it had the stage all set for it; it was thrown out and a resolution call- ing for the labeling of butter made from neutralized cream adopted instead. The -country creamery men and their friends At an Equity Co-Operative exchangé livestock show and sale at the South St. Paul stock Otto Anderson, a League bhooster, from Peever, S. D., is holding one of Min- nesota’s best roan shorthorn bulls, and the man to the left:is the buyer, who shipped the bull to Joplin, Mont. -To the left of the auctioneer is H. Li- noff, Equity exchange accountant, who was clerking the sales. must continue to be just as wide-awake, watch fur- ther developments carefully, put down all harmony talk for the camouflaged neutralizer talk that it really is, organize stronger than ever and just stick up for labeling of butter made from neutralized cream as ‘renovated cream butter.’ - “Always remember this: “The. marketing of ‘butter’ made from reno- vated (neutralized) cream without a descriptive label in competition with the butter made by the country creameries in the lawful manner will even- tually mean the closing up of all smaller cream- eries (co-operative, stock companies and individual business), and kill the means whereby several thou- sand trained and experienced men now make an honest living. It will also deprive the farmers of the control of the butterfat markets which they now have in Minnésota and will make the butterfat price to them much lower. Abnormally bow cream rates and marketing ‘butter’ made from renovated cream as butter are the keys to the wealth and . PAGE TEN: required to operate. - Farm Tractor Problems Points From Speech by Prominent Manu- facturer at Kansas City Me_aetmg BY FINLEY P. MOUNT * President Advance-Rumely Company. : -1T WOULD seem the first prob- lem which a tractor designer should keep in mirnd is the use to which his product is to be ap- plied. If you are going to de- sign a tractor, therefore, I re- spectfully suggest the first question you should ask is, what do you expect to do with the tractor? What kind of work have you to perform and what economies can be secured by the perform- ance of that work with a power machine? The work of a tractor has become synonymous’ with farm work and since the farm tractor is to be bought and used by the farmer in the operation of his farm, our first study should be just what this farm work is. ; We must, therefore, take a look over the entire farm for the whole period of the year, analyze and classify the work on the farm capable of being done" by mechanical power. We must also broaden our views geographically so as to cover the whole field of farming and include not only the one-purpose farm as found in the great small grain areas of the West, but the general-purpose farm with a di- versity of crops and a consequent diversity of work. To my mind farm work divides itself, from the standpoint of a farm tractor, into three classes: 1. Heavy duty work—breaking ground, preparing the seed bed, drawing heavy loads, operating hay- ing and harvesting machinery in large or multiple units, pulling a grain separator and the like. 2. Light duty work—cultivating row crops, oper- ating haying tools and harvesting machinery in single units; doing all the light jobs on the farm ordinarily performed by one to three horses. 3. Transportation over improved roads between the farm and the mar- ket, of supplies to and products from the farm. 1 ; In my judgment, an all-pur- pose farm tractor, one to do ef- fectually all the work on the | farm, is fundamentally im- E possible. It may be admitted in the outset that all of these jobs may be shiot at by one type of tractor, but in my judgment they never will be done by one type of i tractor because they can never be economically done by one type of tractor and the motorized farm will be- come a reality only when -~ tractor engineers and trac- tor manufacturers realize that ‘it is not only worth while but -an economical necessity to provide a farmer with a power unit for each of the above named or similar classifications of work, 'One does not attempt to haul logs in a top buggy, " mor drive to church on Sunday in a log wagon. The first is wholly impracticable and both are uneco- nomical. Railroading is a big business, but it is not as big a business as farming; its problems of power are less intricate than the problems of power farming. Yet it did not take long for railroads to discover and discard the all-purpose locomotive and to classify their work and build their power units accordingly. : Breaking ground and belt operations are the heaviest parts of farm work. To perform this work successfully and economically one must have a tractor with such excess power in its motor that it will readily and without strain meet the highest peaks of requirement put on it in the way of heavy gumbo soils, hard, dry, packed soil conditions and the varying grades on which the machine may be - The machine must also be .