The Butter Was Shipped 'Tagless, Label-less, Mark-less'—and Washington Farmers Paid for It

Redmond, Jan. 23, 1895. To the Editor: In a recent issue of the Post-Intelligencer we read an article with the above heading that begins this way: "The farmers of Washington owe a duty to the state which they should speedily proceed to fulfill," etc. Now that reporter who wrote the article may have meant well, but he surely did not know what he was talking about. I would suggest to him that he don seedy duds, such as the home producer must needs wear if he wear any clothes at all, then take a stroll around to the various merchants, commission men and butchers and try his hand at selling farm produce, and that festive reporter would speedily get other ideas. The fact is that there is absolutely no market or market price for anything produced in this state unless the producer is so situated that he can go with the product, whatever it is, and hawk it about till a purchaser is found.

We will take as a staple product pork as an instance. The average price paid the farmers during the last few months has been about 5 cents in Seattle. Now, I assert that the farmer who tries to raise pork anywhere in this state and deliver it at Puget Sound points at 5 cents is losing money; the producer does not get his labor. Then the chances are that unless the owner is right there himself to see to it, he does not get a red cent out of it. Many a poor farmer relying upon the honesty of the commission man has been told that the pork had to be dumped on the garbage scow or turned over to the scavenger. There is always something wrong with your product when you come to settle with enterprising commission men, unless you are there yourself at the time of delivery.

Take the case of butter. The cry with the dealers is ever the "farmers do not make butter that we can handle." I'll grant that much poor butter is made, but I will also maintain that as good butter is made here among the farmers as is made anywhere on earth. And why not? We have the climate (and by the way, about all we will have left if this state of affairs goes on much longer), the best water in abundance and the best of clover pasture. But still the only ones who can sell butter at anything like living prices are those who are so situated that they can deliver it to customers in the nearest towns. But such as have to send their butter to grocers or commission men, no matter how nice or well made and acceptable in every way, do not get the bare cost of production. And the reason is plain enough. There are tons and tons of oleo and butterine sold every day as butter. I tried an experiment once. I went to a grocery store and bought a roll of fancy Eastern creamery butter; I took it to another store and offered it as a sample of "ranch butter" and asked what he could allow me for it. Straightway the butter man went to a tub of oleomargarine, took out a sample and offered it to me for inspection, with this remark: "Your butter is pretty fair for ranch butter, but does not compare with this, and this only costs me 15 cents a pound." It is the mournful fact that the home product, no matter how good, has to be sold in competition with the filthy compound turned out at Chicago or Kansas City.

Some time ago I met with rather an instructive little item in an Eastern dairy journal. It was to this effect, that the dairy and food commissioners of Minnesota had confiscated five casks and nineteen filled tubs of butterine in one of the most prominent creameries of that state. On their promising not to repeat the offense they were let off, and they furthermore gave as an excuse that the "butter" was to be shipped to Puget Sound. It is safe to say that a large portion of the "fancy Eastern creamery butter" is more or less adulterated.

A large packing house in Kansas City is sending out a circular to creameries from which the following is an extract: "We wish to attract your attention to the fact that we are making a specialty of pure, rich and wholesome leaf neutral for use in cheese and other dairy products. It is especially adapted to this purpose, and when in combination is odorless, tasteless, flavorless and colorless. It is packed in tierces which can be shipped in any way to suit. Tagless, label-less, mark-less. We are not inviting you to an experiment; we are offering you an opportunity to buy a constituent in use in your product—a trade which we have been for several years supplying regularly with this product—and apparently with entire satisfaction."

Now I think this speaks for itself. What is this "other dairy products" but butter? The goods will be shipped "tagless, label-less, mark-less," and it is not an experiment either, but trade which we have been for several years supplying regularly with this product! And this is the stuff that goes into a goodly share of "strictly fancy, gilt edge Eastern creamery butter." Until we get a law that will exclude this kind of thing from our markets the farmers of Washington will be powerless to discharge that "debt of duty" to the state.

There was a time when the farmers of this state did not care what the Seattle market was, nor who supplied it. It was the time when the logging camps, mills and mines were running full blast. Then we had a home market that was worth something to the farmer, and in anticipation of continuance of this, the farmers went beyond their means to improve and extend their facilities; then came the crash; camps and mills and mines shut down, the home market was a thing of the past, and foreclosure proceedings, sheriff's sales and untold misery is staring nine-tenths of our farmers in the face, not only on Puget Sound, but all over the state. And how can it be otherwise? Our lumber and shingles are shipped at a loss; what little money that does come in from that source does but little good, for it is less than cost of production, and everything that can possibly be bought outside of the state is so bought and shipped in; a community that yearly sends out more money than it takes in is bound to go bankrupt sooner or later and that is practically the condition of our state today.

I am sorely afraid that the newspaperman's idea of what is due the state is made up of "such stuff as dreams are made of." O. K. ANRUD.