A recent issue of the Utica _Herald_ contains the following:
A New York gentleman, who has recently returned from Liverpool,
writes to a friend in this city and reports the situation healthy
on the other side, but says New York State cheese are done for
as far as fine cheese goes. It is the same old trouble we have
mentioned time and again, too much cheese to the pound of milk—no
body. Canada, and even New Zealand, are taking the trade of fine
cheese from the States. Our factory men will wake up to the fact
some day and find their goods are only second class. In fact, it is
about so now. New York State cheese sell under Canada all the way
from ½ @ 1c. a pound. We have preached this a long while but it is
beginning to be realized now. This accounts for the large shipments
from Canada during the last two months, and the small ones from
here.
Cheese industry is not yet of sufficient magnitude to exert any
marked influence on the European markets, but as the dairy industry
is constantly expanding here, and the State’s product must stand on
its own merits, it behooves manufacturers to avoid the pit that their
brothers of the Empire State have inadvertently stumbled into. We
consume a large amount of cheese here at home, and why are not our
stomachs as worthy to be catered to as are the digestive receptacles
of our English cousins across the pond? Yet there is no alarm in
cheese circles as to deteriorated quality until British buyers find
something that suits them better and for which they are willing to
pay more. Truly cheese-eating New Yorkers are a very patient people.
We have before us the file of a leading American cheese report of
1868—twenty years ago. It says: “We are behind the Canadians as
regards firmness, but ahead of them in point of flavor. The same
relation exists between American and Swedish cheese; also, between
American and English cheese, and other European makes, with the
exception of a few of the best English brands, which are equal if
not superior to our finest grades, as regards flavor, and superior
in fineness and firmness of texture.” This was America’s prestige
a score of years ago. Why has it not been sustained? The cause is
clear to the most obdurate. Producers supposed their cheese supreme
in the English markets and have been abusing an established trade
reputation with impunity. Their folly is now apparent, and the
question naturally arises, Will they play the role of the prodigal
son and return to a path of trade rectitude? That implies that the
banns that unite the creamery and the cheese factory be irrevocably
severed—send the skimmer higher than Gilroy’s kite, as it were.
The American people can appreciate good cheese just as well as the
English. We want good butter, too, but not at the cost of the cheese
quality. That is not necessary, and a few years ago we did not deem
it so, either. Why should there be a tendency in that direction
now? We are now better equipped in every department to send out
better cheese than we did in 1868, yet notice the difference in the
two reports quoted. We are better equipped, because we have more
scientific appliances for handling milk. Our milk is better, because
the pastures are improved, and a finer grade of stock feeds upon
them. Makers of to-day who rely on the accumulated cheese wisdom
handed down through two decades of experience should be rich enough
in knowledge to at least not retrograde from the standard of 1868.
Let us for one moment lay reform in the tariff, and reform in the
civil service on the table and talk, think and act about reform in
cheese. Michigan always takes a front seat when reformation of any
kind is agitated. We are satisfied she will not take a back seat
now. There has probably not been such a tendency in this State as in
other localities to rob milk at both ends and on the sides before
it is suffered to coagulate in cheese, but let us smother what
infection there is before it becomes an established blight on the
Wolverine product. We are satisfied that our dairymen are alive to
their interests here, and will not drift away from safe anchorage. A
shipping cheese requires more body, or, in other words, more acid and
firmness than a cheese designed for home consumption. This is partly
due to the fact that such a quality is demanded by European consumers
and partly because an ocean voyage necessitates it. It takes more
milk to make such cheese, and less milk to produce the softer and
more perishable home trade goods. In thrusting the cheaper article on
the foreign market, New Yorkers have staked a hazardous venture and
lost. Nothing is said about the skimmer, but it gets in its insidious
work all the same—not under full cream brands, probably. We do not
insinuate that, but the markets are crowded with night and flat
skims, occupying space that should be filled with richer goods. Skims
are sent over to England when they really want full cream. Canada and
New Zealand step in with a fine quality of the latter brand, and
they take it even in preference to the States’ best offering. We hold
skimmed cheese greatly responsible for the trade depression under
which the American article is now laboring. It is high time that the
dry, hard stuff was known no more in all the earth.