In connexion with co-operative cheese-making the merit of having founded
the first "cheesery" or cheese factory is generally credited to Jesse
Williams, who lived near Rome, Oneida county, N.Y. The system,
therefore, was of American origin. Williams was a skilled cheese-maker,
and the produce of his dairy sold so freely, at prices over the average,
that he increased his output of cheese by adding to his own supply of
milk other quantities which he obtained from his neighbours. His example
was so widely followed that by the year 1866 there had been established
close upon 500 cheese factories in New York state alone. In 1870 two
co-operative cheeseries were at work in England, one in the town of
Derby and one at Longford in the same county. There are now thousands of
cheeseries in the United States and Canada, and also many "creameries,"
or butter factories, for the making of high-class butter.
The first creamery was that of Alanson Slaughter, and it was built near
Wallkill, Orange county, N.Y., in 1861, or ten years later than the
first cheese factory; it dealt daily with the milk of 375 cows.
Cheeseries and creameries would almost certainly have become more
numerous than they are in England but for the rapidly expanding urban
trade in country milk. The development of each, indeed, has been
contemporaneous since 1871, and they are found to work well in
conjunction one with the other--that is to say, a factory is useful for
converting surplus milk into cheese or butter when the milk trade is
overstocked, whilst the trade affords a convenient avenue for the sale
of milk whenever this may happen to be preferable to the making of
cheese or butter. Extensive dealers in milk arrange for its conversion
into cheese or butter, as the case may be, at such times as the milk
market needs relief, and in this way a cheesery serves as a sort of
economic safety-valve to the milk trade. The same cannot always be said
of creameries, because the machine-skimmed milk of some of these
establishments has been far too much used to the prejudice of the
legitimate milk trade in urban districts. Be this as it may, the
operations of cheeseries and creameries in conjunction with the milk
trade have led to the diminution of home dairying. A rapidly increasing
population has maintained, and probably increased, its consumption of
milk, which has obviously diminished the farmhouse production of cheese,
and also of butter. The foreign competitor has been less successful with
cheese than with butter, for he is unable to produce an article
qualified to compete with the best that is made in Great Britain. In the
case of butter, on the other hand, the imported article, though not ever
surpassing the best home-made, is on the average much better, especially
as regards uniformity of quality. Colonial and foreign producers,
however, send into the British markets as a rule only the best of their
butter, as they are aware that their inferior grades would but injure
the reputation their products have acquired.
There are no official statistics concerning dairy factories in Great
Britain, and such figures relating to Ireland were issued for the first
time in 1901. The number of dairy factories in Ireland in 1900 was
returned at 506, comprising 333 in Munster, 92 in Ulster, 52 in Leinster
and 29 in Connaught. Of the total number of factories, 495 received milk
only, 9 milk and cream and 2 cream only. As to ownership, 219 were
joint-stock concerns, 190 were maintained by co-operative farmers and 97
were proprietary. In the year ended 30th September 1900 these factories
used up nearly 121 million gallons of milk, namely, 94 in Munster, 14 in
Ulster, 7 in Leinster and 6 in Connaught. The number of centrifugal
cream-separators in the factories was 985, of which 889 were worked by
steam, 79 by water, 9 by horse-power and 8 by hand-power. The number of
hands permanently employed was 3653, made up of 976 in Munster, 279 in
Leinster, 278 in Ulster and 120 in Connaught. The year's output was
returned at 401,490 cwt. of butter, 439 cwt. of cheese (made from whole
milk) and 46,253 gallons of cream. In most cases the skim-milk is
returned to the farmers. A return of the number of separators used in
private establishments gave a total of 899, comprising 693 in Munster,
157 in Leinster, 39 in Ulster and 10 in Connaught. In factories and
private establishments together as many as 1884 separators were thus
accounted for. Much of the factory butter would be sent into the markets
of Great Britain, though some would no doubt be retained for local
consumption. A great improvement in the quality of Irish butter has
recently been noticeable in the exhibits entered at the London dairy
show.