Source: North Manchester Journal, December 7, 1893

The Creamery Company.
The president and directors of the Creamery Company called a meeting of the stockholders for Saturday last to advise as to what should be done toward paying a debt that has hung over the property. Should the plant be sold, or would the stockholders raise the money by assessment on the original stock, seemed to be the paramount question. We understand that there is fifty-two stockholders and that the company owns about $1,000, a debt that has been hanging over it from its establishment. The board of managers are anxious that this encumbrance be lifted. The meeting on Saturday was not well attended and but little, if anything, was done or agreed upon by those who were there. In a talk the writer had with Jacob Warner, a member of the board of directors and a man who has supplied the dairy with a large of milk, and knows whereof he speaks, he assured us that the dairy was a good thing, capable of being made more profitable to its stockholders than they possibly realize from their farms by growing wheat and corn. He believes that if only the stockholders would keep such a number of cows as could be kept well on their farms, the factory would not lack for milk, but would have a supply equal to its capacity to handle. The past summer, on account of the dry weather cutting off pasturage, was a hard one on dairies all over the country, but if, he said, people would prepare for such emergencies by planting a piece of ground in corn to feed during such times the supply of milk could easily be kept up, if not improved during any drought that may come. He said he had such a patch last summer and it paid him better than any piece of ground he had. Mr. Warner estimates that from $5.00 to $7.00 a month could be realized from the milk of a good average cow if sold at the price of the last two years, provided, of course, that the cow be given proper attention, but said: "We, myself among them, are starving the dairy out, and what will become of it is hard to tell." The JOURNAL is free to acknowledge that it entertained many misgivings of the enterprise at the time it was projected but in the time it has been in operation the makers of good butter in the territory it has covered have received more than double the price for the butter sold at this place than they received before the dairy was started, or perhaps will receive again if it is allowed to go down. Consequently the farmers have been greatly benefitted, if the stockholders have not. In that way the dairy has been a success. We do not mean to say that it will shut down, on the other hand we hope to make the statement that enough money has been subscribed to help the company out of its present trouble and that the patrons of the dairy have taken efficient measures to enable them to increase the supply of milk, thereby keeping up an enterprise that has been of more general benefit to the people of the vicinity than any one thing in town.