The development of the dairying industry in the vast region of the
United States of America has been described in the official _Year-Book_
by Major Henry E. Alvord, chief of the dairy division of the bureau of
animal industry in the department of agriculture at Washington. The
beginning of the 20th century found the industry upon an altogether
higher level than seemed possible a few decades earlier. The milch cow
herself, upon which the whole business rests, has become almost as much
a machine as a natural product, and a very different creature from the
average animal of bygone days. The few homely and inconvenient
implements for use in the laborious duties of the dairy have been
replaced by perfected appliances, skilfully devised to accomplish their
object and to lighten labour. Long rows of shining metal pans no longer
adorn rural dooryards. The factory system of co-operative 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
handloom, and in many counties it is as difficult to find a farm churn
as a spinning-wheel. An illustration of the nature of the changes is
afforded in the butter-making district of northern Vermont, at St
Albans, the business centre of Franklin county. In 1880 the first
creamery was built in this county; ten years later there were 15. Now a
creamery company at St Albans has upwards of 50 skimming or separating
stations distributed through Franklin and adjoining counties. To these
is carried the milk from more than 30,000 cows. Farmers who possess
separators at home may deliver cream which, after being inspected and
tested, is accepted and credited at its actual butter value, just as
other raw material is sold to mills and factories. The separated cream
is conveyed by rail and waggon to the central factory, where in one room
from 10 to 12 tons of butter are made every working day--a single
churning place for a whole county! The butter is all of standard
quality, "extra creamery," and is sold on its reputation upon orders
received in advance of its manufacture. The price is relatively higher
than the average for the product of the same farms fifty years earlier.
This is mainly due to better average quality and greater uniformity--two
important advantages of the creamery system.
In one important detail dairy labour is the same as a century ago. Cows
still have to be milked by hand. Although many attempts have been made,
and patent after patent has been issued, no mechanical contrivance has
yet proved a practical success as a substitute for the human hand in
milking. Consequently, twice (or thrice) daily every day in the year,
the dairy cows must be milked by manual labour. This is one of the main
items of labour in dairying, and is a delicate and important duty.
Assuming 10 cows per hour to a milker, which implies quick work, it
requires the continuous service of an army of 300,000 men, working 10 or
12 hours a day throughout the year, to milk the cows kept in the United
States.
The business of producing milk for urban consumption, 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 to improve the average quality of the supply.
Quite as much is, however, being done by private enterprise through
large milk companies, well organized and equipped, and establishments
which make a speciality of serving milk and cream of fixed quality and
exceptional purity. Such efforts to furnish "certified" and "guaranteed"
milk, together with general competition for the best class of trade, are
doing more to raise the standard of quality and improve the service than
all the legal measures. The buildings and equipment of some of these
modern dairies are beyond precedent. This branch of dairying is
advancing fast, upon the safe basis of care, cleanliness and better
sanitary conditions.
Cheese-making has been transferred bodily from the domain of domestic
arts to that of manufactures. In the middle of the 19th century about
100,000,000 lb. of cheese was made yearly in the United States, and all
of it in farm dairies. At the beginning of the 20th century the annual
production was about 300,000,000 lb., and 96 or 97% of this was made in
factories. Of these there are nearly 3000, but they vary greatly in
capacity, and some are very small. New York and Wisconsin possess a
thousand each, but the former state makes nearly twice as much cheese as
the latter, whilst the two together produce three-fourths of the entire
output of the country. A change is taking place in the direction of
bringing a number of factories previously independent into a
"combination" or under the same management. This tends to improve the
quality and secure greater uniformity in the product, and often reduces
cost of manufacture. More than nine-tenths of all the cheese made is of
the familiar standard type, copied after the English Cheddar, but new
kinds and imitations of foreign varieties are increasing. The annual
export of cheese from the United States ranges between 30,000,000 and
50,000,000 lb. The consumption _per capita_ does not exceed 3(1/2) lb.
per annum, which is much less than in most European countries.
Butter differs from cheese in that it is still made much more largely on
farms in the United States than in creameries. Creamery butter controls
all the large markets, but this represents little more than one-third of
the entire business. Estimating the annual butter product of the entire
country at 1,400,000,000 lb. not much over 500,000,000 lb. of this is
made at the 7500 or 8000 creameries in operation. Iowa is the greatest
butter-producing state, and the one in which the greater proportion is
made on the factory plan. The total output of butter in this state is
one-tenth of all made in the Union. The average quality of butter has
materially improved since the introduction of the creamery system and
the use of modern appliances. Nevertheless, a vast quantity of poor
butter is made--enough to afford a large and profitable business in
collecting it at country stores at grease prices or a little more, and
then rendering or renovating it by patent processes. This renovated
butter has been fraudulently sold to a considerable extent as the true
creamery article, of which it is a fair imitation while fresh, and
several states have made laws for the identification of the product and
to prevent buyers from being imposed upon. No butter is imported, and
the quantity exported is insignificant, although there is beginning to
be a foreign demand for American butter. The home consumption is
estimated at the yearly rate of 20 lb. per person, which, if correct,
would indicate Americans to be the greatest butter-eating people in the
world. The people of the United States also consume millions of pounds
every year of butter substitutes and imitations, such as oleomargarine
and butterine. Most of this is believed to be butter by those who use
it, and the state dairy commissioners are busily employed in carrying
out the laws intended to protect purchasers from these butter frauds.
The by-products of dairying have, within recent years, been put to
economical uses, in an increasing degree. For every pound of butter made
there are 15 to 20 lb. of skim-milk and about 3 lb. of butter-milk, and
for every pound of cheese nearly 9 lb. of whey. Up to 1889 or 1890
enormous quantities of skim-milk and butter-milk from the creameries and
of whey from the cheese factories were entirely wasted. At farm dairies
these by-products are generally used to advantage in feeding animals,
but at the factories--especially at the seasons of greatest milk
supply--this most desirable method of utilization is to a great extent
impracticable. In many places new branches have been instituted for the
making of sugar-of-milk and other commercial products from whey, and for
the utilization of skim-milk in various ways. The albumin of the latter
is extracted for use with food products and in the arts. The casein is
desiccated and prepared as a substitute for eggs in baking, as the basis
of an enamel paint, and as a substitute for glue in paper-sizing. It has
also been proposed to solidify it to make buttons, combs, brush-backs,
electrical insulators and similar articles.
No census of cows in the United States was taken until the year 1840,
but they have been enumerated in each subsequent decennial census.
From 23 to 27 cows to every 100 of the population were required to
keep the country supplied with milk, butter and cheese, and provide
for the export of dairy products. The export trade, though it has
fluctuated considerably, has never exceeded the produce of 500,000
cows. At the close of the 19th century it was estimated that there was
one milch cow in the United States for every four persons, making the
number of cows about 17,500,000. They are, however, very unevenly
distributed, being largely concentrated in the great dairy states,
Iowa leading with 1,500,000 cows, and being followed closely by New
York. In the middle and eastern states the milk product goes very
largely to the supply of the numerous large towns and cities. In the
central, west and north-west butter is the leading dairy product.
TABLE XVIII.--_Estimated Number of Cows and Quantity and Value of
Dairy Products in the United States in 1899._
+------------+----------+----------+--------------------+---------+-------------+
| | | Rate of | | Rate of | |
| Cows. | Product. | Product | Total Product. | Value. | Total Value.|
| | | per Cow. | | | |
+------------+----------+----------+--------------------+---------+-------------+
| | | | | Cents. | Dollars. |
| 11,000,000 | Butter | 130 lb. | 1,430,000,000 lb. | 18 | 257,400,000 |
| 1,000,000 | Cheese | 300 lb. | 300,000,000 lb. | 9 | 27,000,000 |
| 5,500,000 | Milk | 380 gals.| 2,090,000,000 gals.| 8 | 167,200,000 |
+------------+----------+----------+--------------------+---------+-------------+
Table XVIII. shows approximately the quantity and value of the dairy
products of the United States for a typical year, the grand total
representing a value of $451,600,000. Adding to this the skim-milk,
butter-milk 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, or is more than one hundred million pounds
sterling. Accepting these estimates as conservative, they show that
the commercial importance of the dairy industry of the United States
is such as to justify all reasonable provisions for guarding its
interests. (W. Fr.)