"The Lord helps those who help themselves" is not an idle saying, and no where is it more applicable than in this matter so much before the public eye just now, farm relief. In the dairy business particularly, in which it seems there is more grief in surpluses and marketing than in any other branch of agriculture, the principle holds good. In our locality butter fat is now at the lowest figure it has been for years for the month of January, thirty cents a pound. The season of heavy flow has not even begun and yet the market price is perilously near the cost of production. It is generally agreed that one of the causes of this situation is the tremendous increase in the consumption of oleo.
The manufacturers of that product have improved their technique and advertised the product and they sell it at a figure which makes it a serious temptation to substitute oleo for butter. Present-day oleo is a palatable, fine-textured, attractive-looking fat, but it does not contain the vitamins and minerals essential for health, as butter does. A producer of butter fat who sells milk and cream and buys oleo for home use is not only injuring his business from an economic standpoint, but is depriving his family of necessary food elements to which they have a greater right than any one else. It is to be hoped that every reader of this paper will consider carefully before he trades his butter fat for oleo. At first thought, he may think he is saving money or making money by the practice, and of course we have all sympathy for those who must make every penny count.
But in the long run, if all the farmer who need to save money are selling cream and buying oleo, the market will be so glutted with milk products that the price will be forced down and down until it meets the price of oleo. And every farmer knows that it is impossible to produce high class butter fat cheaply. It should be the principal of every farm home to select form the produce of the farm all that can be used to further the health and well-being of the family, then to sell the rest. Many farm families are necessarily deprived of many modern comforts and conveniences of city life. At least give them their fill of wholesome and healthful food; the best the farm affords, not the culls and left-overs and substitutes. --Hope.