After contemplating the immensity of our annual cheese output, the
question naturally arises, “Where does it all go to?” The earliest
shipments of American cheese were made from New York to England in
1835 and 1836. The beginning was very limited; shipments of cheese
were made in casks; $60,000 would probably comprise the value of all
shipments made in those years. As England still remains our principal
foreign customer, we will come down to the year 1882 and give the
official figures of the port of New York of the annual receipts and
exports. We do not mean to intimate that England takes _all_ of our
exports, but she absorbs the major portion of them.
Year. Receipts. Exports.
Receipts of Cheese in New York, 1882, 2,350,559 1,898,192
” ” ” 1883, 2,456,232 1,957,967
” ” ” 1884, 2,407,550 1,932,702
” ” ” 1885, 2,122,187 1,658,696
” ” ” 1886, 1,943,260 1,575,262
” ” ” 1887, 1,994,857 1,450,955
” ” ” 1888, 1,993,462
The 1888 export is not recorded yet. It is hard to get at the home
trade quantity used throughout the country. There are many cheese
distributed from factories to neighboring towns in Ohio, Wisconsin,
Michigan and other states of which no account is kept, and there are
no statistics covering the entire make, but at a guess we should
say it was about 4,000,000 boxes annually. The cause of decline in
receipts at the port of New York since 1882, is largely due to the
fact that a good many cheese made in the northern part of this State
(N. Y.) are bought by Canadians and shipped _via_ Montreal. It is
said that Englishmen eat twelve pounds of cheese _per capita_ a year,
while Americans eat three pounds. Cheese consumption is, however,
on the increase here, as the healthy and nutritive qualities of
the product are more and more appreciated. One of the most serious
drawbacks to universal cheese consumption is the large profits
exacted by middlemen when they dispense it to the public. If cheese
could be had at the grocery for 9 or 10 cents per pound instead of
14 or 15 cents, it would be found in abundance on the poor man’s
table, and a heavy decrease in the export trade would result. We
believe that such a time is coming, and with it will come a vast
improvement in the average quality of the national make. This is not
a mere speculation, but a distinctive pointer of the times, and its
verification is already at hand. Thirty-five years ago the innovation
of the cheddar process gave cheese quality its first great advance.
That advance remains yet to be perfected in detail, and then a cheese
millennium will reign.