The third quarter of a century was also a period of unprecedented
progress in the application of mechanics to the dairy. The factories
and creameries required new equipment, adapted to manufacture upon an
enlarged scale, and equal attention was paid to the improvement of
appliances for farm dairies. The system for setting milk for creaming
in deep cans in cold water—preferably ice-water—was introduced
from Sweden, although the same principles had been in practice for
generations in the spring-houses of the South. Numerous creaming
appliances, or creamers, were invented, based upon this system. Shallow
pans were changed in size and shape, and then almost disappeared.
Butter workers of various models took the place of bowl and ladle and
the use of the bare hand. Churns appeared, of all shapes, sizes, and
kinds, the general movement being towards the abolition of dashers
and the substitution of agitation of cream for violent beating. About
this time the writer made a search of the United States Patent Office
records, which revealed the fact that forty or fifty new or improved
churns were claimed annually, and after rejecting about one fourth, the
patents actually issued provided a new churn every fifteen days for
more than seventy years. This illustrates the activity of invention in
this line. It was admitted by all that at this period the United States
was far in advance of any other country in the variety and excellence
of its mechanical aids to dairying.
The same period witnessed the organization of dairymen in voluntary
associations for mutual benefit in several States, the formation of
clubs and societies of breeders of pure-bred cattle, and the appearance
of the first American dairy literature of consequence in book form.
The American Dairymen’s Association was organized in 1803. Its field
of activity was east of Indiana, and accordingly the Northwestern
Dairymen’s Association was formed in 1867. Both of these continued in
existence, held periodical meetings, and published their proceedings
for twelve or fifteen years. Then the formation of State dairy
associations in Vermont (1870), Pennsylvania (1871), New York (1877),
Wisconsin (1872), Illinois (1874), Iowa (1870), and other States took
the place of the pioneer societies which covered wider territory.
The Short-horn breed led in the introduction of improved cattle to
the United States, and for a long time the representatives of this
race, imported from England, embraced fine dairy animals. Short-horn
grades formed the foundation, and a very good one, upon which many
dairy herds were built up during the second and third quarters of the
century, and much of this blood is still found in prosperous dairying
districts. This was the period of greatest activity in importing
improved cattle from abroad. But Short-horns have been so generally
bred for beef qualities that the demand for them is almost exclusively
on that line, and they are no longer classed as dairy cattle. Ayrshires
from Scotland, Holstein-Friesians from North Holland, and Jerseys
and Guernseys from the Channel Islands, are the breeds recognized as
of dairy excellence, and upon which the industry mainly depends for
improvement of its milch cows. The first two named are noted for giving
large quantities of milk of medium quality; the other two breeds, both
often miscalled “Alderney,” give milk of exceeding richness, and are
the favorites with butter makers. There are also the Brown Swiss and
Simmenthal cattle from Switzerland, the Normandy breed from France,
and Red Polled cattle from the south of England, which have dairy
merit, but belong rather to what is called the “general purpose” class.
Associations of persons interested in maintaining the purity of all the
different breeds named have been formed since 1850, and they all record
pedigrees and publish registers or herd-books. Pure-bred herds of some
of these different breeds are owned in nearly all parts of the country,
and half-breeds or higher grades are found wherever cows are kept for
dairy purposes. The quality and production of the average dairy cow in
America are thus being steadily advanced.
[Illustration: A TYPICAL DAIRY COW—AYRSHIRE.]
The development of dairying in the United States during the closing
decades of the nineteenth century has been uninterrupted, and
marked by events of the greatest consequence in the entire history.
The importance of two inventions during this period cannot be
overestimated. The first is the application of centrifugal force to the
separation of cream from milk. This is based upon the specific gravity
of the milk serum or skim milk, and of whatever impure matter may have
entered the milk, such gravity being greater than that of the fatty
portion or cream. The dairy centrifuge, or cream separator, enables the
creaming or “skimming” to be done immediately after milking, preferably
while the milk is still warm. The cream can be at once churned, while
sweet; but a better practice is to cure or “ripen” it for churning:
this can be done at a comparatively high temperature, dispensing with
the necessity of so much ice or cold water. The skim milk is available
for use while still warm, quite sweet, and in its best condition for
feeding to young animals. This mechanical method is more efficient,
securing more perfect cream separation than the old gravity system, and
the dairy labor is very largely reduced. The handling and caring for
the milk may be thus wholly removed from the duties of the household.
A usual plan is to have a “skimming station,” to which the milk is
hauled at least daily from the producing farms in the vicinity, and
where one or more separators are operated by power. Separators are
also made of sizes and patterns suited to farm use, where they may
be operated by hand or by light power,—electricity, steam, water, a
horse, a bull, a sheep, or a dog. Besides its economy and its effect
upon labor, this machine almost eliminates the factor of climate in a
large part of dairy management, and altogether has worked a revolution
in the industry. The centrifugal separator is still a marvel to those
who see it working for the first time: the whole milk, warm, flows
into the centre of a strong steel bowl, held in an iron frame; the
bowl revolves at a rate of 1500 to 25,000 times per minute, and from
two projecting tubes cream and skim milk flow in continuous streams to
separate receptacles. The machines can be regulated to produce cream
of any desired thickness or quality. These separators, of different
sizes, are capable of thus skimming or separating, or more properly,
creaming, from 15 to 500 gallons of milk per hour. A machine of
standard factory size has a speed of 6000 to 7000 revolutions a minute,
and a capacity for separating 250 gallons of milk an hour. The world is
indebted to Europe for this invention, at least as a dairy appliance.
Yet investigations were in progress contemporaneously in this country
along the same line, and many of the material improvements in the cream
separator and several entirely new patterns have since been invented
here. The first separators were put into practical use in this country
and Great Britain in the year 1879. The century closes with 35,000 to
40,000 of these machines in operation in the United States.
The second great dairy invention of the period is the fat-test for
milk,—being a quick and easy substitute for chemical analysis. This is
one of the public benefactions of the Agricultural Experiment Stations
which, under State and national endowment, have been established during
the last part of the century, so that there is now at least one in
every State. A number of these have done much creditable work in dairy
investigation, and from them have come several clever methods for
testing the fat content of milk. The method which has been generally
approved and is now almost universally adopted in this and other lands
is named for its originator, Dr. S. M. Babcock, the able chemist and
dairy investigator, first of the New York Station at Geneva and since
of the Wisconsin Station at Madison. This tester combines the principle
of centrifugal force with simple chemical action. The machine, on the
Babcock plan, has been made in a great variety of patterns, simple
and inexpensive for home use, more elaborate and substantial for
factories. By them from two to forty samples of milk may be tested at
once in a few moments; and by slight modifications in the appliances,
the fat may be determined in samples of milk, cream, skim-milk, or
butter-milk. This fat test of milk has wide application, and is second
only to the separator in advancing the economies of dairying. The
percentage of fat being accepted as the measure of value for milk for
nearly all purposes, the Babcock test may be the basis for city milk
inspection, for fixing the price of milk delivered to city dealers, to
cheese factories and creameries, and for commercial settlements between
patrons in coöperative dairying of any kind. By this test, also, the
dairyman may prove the quality of milk from his different cows, and
(with quantity of milk-yield recorded) may fix their respective value
as dairy animals. With perfect apparatus in careful hands, the accuracy
of the test is unquestioned, and it is of the highest scientific value.
It should be noted that although clearly patentable, and offering an
independence through a very small royalty, this priceless invention and
boon to dairying was freely given to the public by Dr. Babcock.
[Illustration: CENTRIFUGAL CREAM SEPARATOR IN OPERATION.]
The advent of the twentieth century finds the dairy industry of the
United States established upon a plane far above the simple and
crude domestic art of three or four generations ago. The milch cow
itself, upon which the whole business rests, is more of a machine
than a natural product. The animal has been so bred and developed to
a special purpose, that instead of the former short milking period,
almost limited to the pasture season, it yields a comparatively even
flow of milk during ten or eleven months in every twelve; and if
desired, the herd produces as much in winter as in summer. It is not
unusual for cows to give ten or twelve times their own weight of milk
during a year. And the quality has been so improved that the milk of
many a good dairy cow will produce as much butter in a week as could
be made from three or four average cows of the olden time. Instead
of a few homely and inconvenient implements for use in the laborious
duties of the dairy, generally devolving upon the women of the farm,
perfected appliances skillfully devised to accomplish their object and
lighten labor are provided all along the way. The factory system of
coöperative or concentrated manufacture has so far taken the place of
home dairying, that in entire States the cheese vat or press is as rare
as the hand-loom, and in many counties it is as hard to find a farm
churn as a spinning-wheel. Long rows of shining tin pans are no longer
seen adorning rural dooryards, as one drives along country roads; but
in their place may be found the bright faces of “the women-folks,” who
rejoice over the revolution of modern dairying.
[Illustration: MILK TESTER (OPEN).]
Here is an example of this radical change in the system of making
butter: Northern Vermont has always been a region of large butter
production. St. Albans, in Franklin County, is the natural business
centre. During the middle of the century the country-made butter came
to this town to market every Tuesday from miles around. The average
weekly supply was 30 to 40 tons. This was very varied in quality,
was sampled and classified with much labor and expense, placed in
three grades—prime, fair, and poor—and forwarded to the Boston
market, two hundred miles distant. During twenty-five years ending
in 1875, 65,000,000 lbs., valued at $20,000,000, passed through this
little town. All of this was dairy butter made upon a thousand or two
different farms, in as many churns. In 1881, the first creamery was
built in this county. Now, the Franklin County Creamery Company,
located at St. Albans, has fifty-odd skimming stations distributed
through this and adjoining counties. To them is carried the milk from
30,000 cows or more, and the separated cream is sent by rail to the
central factory, where from ten to twelve tons of butter are made every
day. A single churning room for the whole county! All of this butter
is of standard quality, and sold on its reputation upon orders from
distant points received in advance of its manufacture. The price is
relatively higher than the average for the product of the same farms
fifty years ago.
[Illustration: BUTTER-MAKING ON THE FARM—THE OLD WAY.]
In one respect dairy labor is the same as a hundred years ago. Cows
still have to be milked by hand. Although numerous attempts have been
made, and patent after patent issued, no mechanical contrivance has yet
been a practical success as a substitute for the human hand in milking.
Therefore, twice a day, every day in the year, the dairy cows must be
milked. This is one of the main items of labor in the dairy, as well
as a most delicate and important duty. Allowing ten cows per hour to a
milker,—which is pretty lively work,—it requires the continuous labor
of an army of 300,000 men, working ten or twelve hours a day throughout
the year, to milk the cows of the United States.
The industry is becoming thoroughly organized. Besides local clubs,
societies, and unions, there are dairy associations in thirty States,
most of them incorporated and receiving financial aid under State laws.
In some States, the butter makers and cheese makers are separately
organized. Sixteen States provide by law for officials known as Dairy
Commissioners or Dairy and Food Commissions. These officers have a
national association, and there are also two national organizations
of dairymen. At various large markets and centres of activity in the
commerce of the dairy, there are special boards of trade. The United
States Department of Agriculture has a Dairy Division, intended to
watch over and promote the dairy interests of the country at large.
Dairy schools are maintained in several States, offering special
courses of practical and scientific instruction in all branches of
the business. These schools and the agricultural experiment stations,
with which most of them are closely connected, are doing much original
research and adding to the store of useful information as to the
applications of modern science to the improvement of dairy methods
and results. Weekly and monthly journals, in the interest of dairy
production and trade, are published in various parts of the country.
And during the last decade or two a number of noteworthy books on
different aspects of dairying have been published, so that the student
of this subject may fill a good-sized case with substantial volumes,
technical and practical in character.
The business of producing milk for town and city supply, with the
accompanying agencies for transportation and distribution, has grown
to immense proportions. In many places the milk trade is regulated and
supervised by excellent municipal ordinances, which have done much to
prevent adulteration and improve the average quality of the supply.
Full as much is being done by private enterprise, through large milk
companies, well organized and equipped, and establishments which make
a specialty of serving milk and cream of fixed quality and exceptional
purity. This branch of dairying is advancing very fast, and upon
the substantial basis of care, cleanliness, and improved sanitary
conditions.
Cheese-making has been transferred bodily from the realm of domestic
arts to that of manufactures. Farm-made cheeses are hard to find
anywhere, are used only locally, and make no impression upon the
markets. In the middle of the century about 100,000,000 pounds of
cheese were made yearly in the United States, all of it on farms. At
the close of the century the annual production of the country is about
300,000,000 pounds, and 96 or 97 per cent of this is made in factories.
Of these establishments there are some 3000, varying greatly in
capacity. New York and Wisconsin each have over a thousand; the former
State makes nearly twice as much cheese as the latter, and the two
together produce three fourths of the entire output of this country.
The other cheese-making States, in the order of quantity produced, are
Ohio, Illinois, Michigan, and Pennsylvania; but all are comparatively
unimportant. More than nine tenths of all made is of the familiar
standard variety copied after the English Cheddar, but new kinds and
imitations of foreign varieties are increasing. The cheese made in
the country, with the small importations added, gives an allowance of
less than four pounds a year to every person; but as thirty to fifty
million pounds are still annually exported, the per capita consumption
of cheese in the United States does not exceed three and a half pounds.
This is a very low rate, much less than in most European countries.
[Illustration: BUTTER-MAKING—THE NEW WAY.]
Great as has been the growth of the factory system of butter-making,
and fast as creameries are multiplying, especially in the newer and
growing agricultural States, such as Minnesota, Nebraska, Kansas,
and South Dakota, there is still much more butter made on farms in
the United States than in creameries. Creamery butter controls all
the large markets, the dairy product making comparatively little
impression on the trade. But home consumption and the supply of small
customers and local markets make an immense aggregate, being fully two
thirds of all. Estimating the annual butter product of the country at
1,400,000,000 pounds, not much over 400,000,000 of this is made in
the 8000 or 9000 creameries now in operation. Iowa is the greatest
butter producing State, and the one in which the greatest proportion
is made on the factory plan. This State has 850 creameries, only three
counties being without them; about two fifths are coöperative. In
these creameries about 90,000,000 pounds of butter are made annually
from 750,000 cows. It is estimated that in the same State 50,000,000
pounds of butter in addition are made in farm dairies. The total butter
product of the State is therefore one tenth of all made in the Union.
Iowa sends over 80,000,000 pounds of butter every year to other States.
New York is next in importance as a butter-making State, and then
come Pennsylvania, Illinois, Wisconsin, Ohio, Minnesota, and Kansas.
Yet all these combined make but little more than half of the annual
butter crop of the United States, and in no one of them, except Iowa,
is half of the butter produced made in creameries. The average quality
of butter in America has materially improved since the introduction
of the creamery system and the use of modern appliances. No butter
is imported, and the quantity exported is as yet insignificant.
Consequently the home consumption must be at the yearly rate of twenty
pounds the person, or about one hundred lbs. annually to the family of
average size. If approximately correct, this shows Americans to be the
greatest butter-eating people of the world.
And the people of this country also consume millions of pounds every
year of butter substitutes and imitations, known as oleomargarine,
butterine, etc. Most of this is believed to be butter by those who use
it, and the State Dairy Commissioners mentioned are largely occupied in
the execution of laws intended to protect consumers from these butter
frauds.
The cows in the United States were not counted until 1840, but they
have been enumerated for every decennial census since. It has required
from 23 to 27 cows to every 100 of the inhabitants to keep the country
supplied with milk, butter, and cheese, and provide for the export of
dairy products. The export trade has fluctuated much, but has never
exceeded the product of half a million cows. With the closing years of
the century, it is estimated that there is one milch cow in the United
States to every four persons. This makes the total number of cows about
17,500,000. They are quite unevenly distributed over the country, being
largely concentrated in the great dairy States. Thus Iowa leads with a
million and a half cows, followed by New York with almost as many, and
then Illinois and Pennsylvania with about a million each. The States
having over half a million each are Wisconsin, Ohio, Kansas, Missouri,
Minnesota, Nebraska, and Indiana. Texas is credited with 700,000, but
very few of them are dairy animals. In the Middle and Eastern States
the milk product goes very largely to the supply of the numerous
cities and large towns. In the Central West and Northwest butter is
the principal dairy product. It is estimated that the dairy animals of
the United States include nearly half a million which are pure bred,
and that this blood has been so generally diffused that more than one
fourth of the cattle are grades.
[Illustration: THE DAIRY MAID.]
The following table gives approximately an exhibit of the quantity and
value of the dairy products of the United States in the year 1900:—
======================================================================
Cows, |Product.| Rate of | Total Product. | Rate of|Total Value,
Millions.| | Product.| | Value.| Dollars.
---------+--------+---------+-------------------+--------+------------
11 | Butter |130 lbs. |1,430,000,000 lbs. |18 cents|257,400,000
1 | Cheese |300 lbs. | 300,000,000 lbs. | 8 cents| 24,000,000
5½ | Milk |380 gals.|2,090,000,000 gals.| 8 cents|167,200,000
======================================================================
This gives the grand total of the dairy products of the country a value
of $448,600,000. If to this be added the skim milk, buttermilk, and
whey, at their proper feeding value, and the calves dropped yearly,
the annual aggregate value of the produce of the dairy cows exceeds
$500,000,000. This may be accepted as a conservative estimate.
In a classification of the various annual farm products of the country
by values, meats and closely related products stand first in order,
the corn crop second, dairy products and the hay crop alternate in the
third and fourth places, and wheat occupies the fifth. Hay and corn are
so largely and directly tributary to the dairy as raw materials for its
support, that it is fair to place the products of the dairy as second
only to meat products in the general list. The cotton crop of the
country is considered one of great importance, but during recent years
it rarely equals the butter crop in value. The dairy aggregate exceeds
all the mining products of the United States other than coal, oil,
and gas. There never has been a year when the entire gold and silver
product of the world was enough to buy the annual dairy products of
this country at the present time. These comparisons show the commercial
importance which the dairying of America has assumed. It is a branch
of farming of such magnitude as to command attention and justify all
reasonable provisions to guard its interests.
THE CENTURY’S MORAL PROGRESS
BY SARA Y. STEVENSON, Sc. D.,
_Secretary Department of Archæology, University of Pennsylvania_.
In dealing with a subject so indefinite in its limits as the progress
of morals in the nineteenth century, it may be well to establish by a
brief survey of previous facts some solid basis upon which to rest the
discussion.
The notion of Duty or of moral obligation—i. e., of well-doing viewed
in the abstract and outside of expediency—does not appear to have been
brought forward by the Greek philosophers, to whom is mainly due the
origin of our own conceptions with regard to morality.