Geo. W. Peck, of the _Sun_, recently delivered an address before the
Wisconsin State Dairyman's Association. The following is an extract from
the document:
_Fellow Cremationists:_ In calling upon me, on this occasion, to enlighten
you upon a subject that is dear to the hearts of all Americans, you have
got the right man in the right place. It makes me proud to come to my old
home and unfold truths that have been folded since I can remember. It may
be said by scoffers, and it has been said to-day, in my presence, that I
didn't know enough to even milk a cow. I deny the allegation; show me the
allegator. If any gentleman present has got a cow here with him, and I can
borrow a clothes-wringer, I will show you whether I can milk a cow or not.
Or, if there is a cheese mine here handy, I will demonstrate that I
can--_runnet_.
The manufacture of cheese and butter has been among the earliest
industries. Away back in the history of the world, we find Adam and Eve
conveying their milk from the garden of Eden, in a one-horse wagon to the
cool spring cheese factory to be weighed in the balance. Whatever may be
said of Adam and Eve to their discredit in the marketing of the products
of their orchard, it has never been charged that they stopped at the pump
and put water in their milk cans. Doubtless you will remember how Cain
killed his brother Abel because Abel would not let him do the churning. We
can picture Cain and Abel driving mooly cows up to the house from the
pasture in the southeast corner of the garden, and Adam standing at the
bars with a tin pail and a three-legged stool, smoking a meerschaum pipe
and singing "Hold the fort for I am coming through the rye," while Eve sat
on the verandah altering over her last year's polonaise, and winking at
the devil who stood behind the milk house singing, "I want to be
an angel." After he got through milking he came up and saw Eve blushing,
and he said, "Madame, cheese it," and she chose it.
[Illustration: A SCENE IN PARADISE.]
But to come down to the present day, we find that cheese has become one of
the most important branches of manufacture. It is next in importance to
the silver interest. And, fellow cheese-mongers, you are doing yourselves
great injustice that you do not petition congress to pass a bill to
remonetize cheese. There is more cheese raised in this country than there
is silver, and it is more valuable. Suppose you had not eaten a mouthful
in thirty days, and you should have placed on the table before you ten
dollars stamped out of silver bullion on one plate and nine dollars
stamped from cheese bullion on another plate. Which would you take first?
Though the face value of the nine cheese dollars would be ten per cent
below the face value of ten silver dollars, you would take the cheese. You
could use it to better advantage in your business. Hence I say cheese is
more valuable than silver, and it should be made legal tender for all
debts, public and private, except pew rent. I may be in advance of other
eminent financiers, who have studied the currency question, but I want to
see the time come, and I trust the day is not far distant, when 412-1/2
grains of cheese will be equal to a dollar in codfish, and when the merry
jingle of slices of cheese shall be heard in every pocket.
Then every cheese factory can make its own coin, money will be plenty,
everybody will be happy, and there never will be any more war. It may be
asked how this currency can be redeemed? I would have an incontrovertible
bond, made of Limburger cheese, which is stronger and more durable. When
this is done you can tell the rich from the poor man by the smell of his
money. Now-a-days many of us do not even get a smell of money, but in the
good days which are coming the gentle zephyr will waft to us the
able-bodied Limburger, and we shall know that money is plenty.
The manufacture of cheese is a business that a poor man can engage in, as
well as a rich man, I say it without fear of successful contradiction, and
say it boldly, that a poor man with, say 200 cows, if he thoroughly
understands his business, can market more cheese than a rich man with 300
oxen. This is susceptible of demonstration. If any boy showed a desire to
become a statesman, I would say to him, "Young man, get married, buy a
mooly cow, go to Sheboygan county, and start a cheese factory."
Speaking of cows, did it ever occur to you, gentlemen, what a saving it
would be to you if you should adopt mooley cows instead of horned cattle?
It takes at least three tons of hay and a large quantity of ground feed
annually to keep a pair of horns fat, and what earthly use are
they? Statistics show that there are annually killed 45,000 grangers by
cattle with horns. You pass laws to muzzle dogs, because one in ten
thousand goes mad, and yet more people are killed by cattle horns than by
dogs. What the country needs is more mooley cows.
Now that I am on the subject, it may be asked what is the best paying
breed for the dairy. My opinion is divided between the south down and the
cochin china. Some like one the best and some the other, but as for me,
give me liberty or give me death.
There are many reforms that should be inaugurated in the manufacture of
cheese. Why should cheese be made round? I am inclined to the belief that
the making of cheese round is a superstition. Who had not rather buy a
good square piece of cheese, than a wedge-shaped chunk, all rind at one
end, and as thin as a Congressman's excuse for voting back pay at the
other? Make your cheese square and the consumer will rise up and call you
another.
Another reform that might be inaugurated would be to veneer the cheese
with building paper or clapboards, instead of the time-honored piece of
towel. I never saw cheese cut that I didn't think that the cloth around it
had seen service as a bandage on some other patient. But I may have been
wrong. Another thing that does not seem to be right, is to see so many
holes in cheese. It seems to me that solid cheese, one made by one of the
old masters, with no holes in it--I do not accuse you of cheating, but
don't you feel a little ashamed when you see a cheese cut, and the holes
are the biggest part of it? The little cells may be handy for the skipper,
but the consumer feels the fraud in his innermost soul.
Among the improvements made in the manufacture of cheese I must not forget
that of late years the cheese does not resemble the grindstone as much as
it did years ago. The time has been when, if the farmer could not
find his grindstone, all he had to do was to mortise a hole in the middle
of a cheese, and turn it and grind his scythe. Before the invention of
nitro-glycerine, it was a good day's work to hew off cheese enough for a
meal. Time has worked wonders in cheese.