Nearly all industries have their branches or specialties. Farming is no exception, and one of the most interesting, highly developed, and remunerative of its branches is dairying. To be successful, dairying requires good judgment, knowledge of the relations of modern science to agricultural production, constant study, system, and close attention to details. Hence it is regarded as among the highest forms of farming. The occupation is itself so stimulating and the rewards are so substantial, when brains and brawn are applied to it in judicious combination, that dairying districts are commonly conspicuous as the most enterprising, prosperous, and contented of the rural communities of their section of country.

In all lines of farming at least one “money crop” seems to be the aim, although this term may include animals and animal products. A great disadvantage in certain kinds of farming is that the returns come at long intervals, perhaps but once a year, while the expenses are continuous for twelve months. Dairying, as conducted by modern methods, distributes the farm income through the year; the cash returns are monthly, or oftener, the pernicious credit system disappears, money circulates, and at all seasons a healthy business activity prevails in the whole community.

It is a noteworthy fact, that during periods of agricultural depression experienced in the United States during the nineteenth century, the products of the dairy have maintained relative values above all other farm products, and dairy districts seem to have passed through these periods with less distress than most others.

The greater part of this country, geographically, being well adapted to dairying, this branch of agriculture has always been prominent in America, and its extension has kept pace with the opening and settlement of new territory. For many years a belief existed that successful dairying in the United States must be restricted to narrow geographical limits, constituting a “dairy belt” lying between the fortieth and forty-fifth degrees of latitude, and extending from the Atlantic Ocean to the Missouri River; and the true dairying districts were felt to be in separated sections occupying not more than one third of the area of this belt. These ideas have been exploded. It has been shown that good butter and cheese can, by proper management, be made in almost all parts of North America. Generally speaking, good butter can be profitably produced wherever good beef can. Decided advantages unquestionably exist, in the climate, soil, water, and herbage of certain sections; but these influences are largely under control, and what is lacking in natural conditions can be supplied by tact and skill. So that, while dairying is intensified and constitutes the leading agricultural industry over wide areas, including whole States, where the natural advantages are greatest, the industry is found well established in spots in almost all parts of the country, and is developing in unexpected places, and under what might be considered as very unfavorable conditions.

Dairying existed in colonial times in America, and butter and cheese are mentioned among the early exports from the settlements along the Atlantic coast. But this production was only incident to general farming. Dairying, as a specialty in the United States, did not appear to any extent until well along in the nineteenth century. The history of this industry in this country is therefore identical with its progress in that century. This progress has been truly remarkable. The wide territorial extension, the immense investment in lands, buildings, animals, and equipment, the great improvement in dairy cattle, the acquisition and diffusion of knowledge as to economy of production, the revolution in methods and systems of manufacture, the general advance in quality of products, the wonderful increase in quantity, and the industrial and commercial importance of the industry, have kept pace with the general material progress of the nation and constitute one of its leading features.

During the early part of the century, the keeping of cows on American farms was incident to the general work, the care of milk and the making of butter and cheese were in the hands of the women of the household, the methods and utensils were crude, the average quality of the products was inferior, and the supply of our domestic markets was unorganized and irregular. The milch cows in use belonged to the mixed and indescribable herd of “native” cattle, with really good dairy animals appearing singly, almost by accident, or, at the best, in a family developed by some uncommonly discriminating yet unscientific breeder. The cows calved almost universally in the spring, and were generally allowed to go dry in the autumn or early winter. Winter dairying was practically unknown. As a rule, excepting the pasture season, cattle were insufficiently, and therefore unprofitably, fed and poorly housed. In the Eastern and Northern States, the milk was usually set in small shallow earthen vessels or tin pans, for the cream to rise. Little attention was paid to cooling the air in which it stood in summer, or to moderating it in winter, so long as freezing was prevented. The pans of milk oftener stood in pantries and cellars than in milk rooms specially constructed or prepared. In Pennsylvania and the States farther south, where spring-houses were in vogue, milk received better care, and setting it in earthen crocks or pots, standing in cool, flowing water, was a usual and excellent practice. Churning the entire milk was very common. Excepting the comparatively few instances where families were supplied with butter weekly, and occasionally a cheese, direct from the producers, the farm practice was to “pack” the butter in firkins, half-firkins, tubs, and jars, and let the cheese accumulate on the farms, taking these products to market only once or twice a year. Not only were there as many different lots and kinds of butter and cheese as there were producing farms, but the product of a single farm varied in character and quality, according to season and other circumstances. Every package had to be examined, graded, and sold upon its merits. Prices were low.

These conditions continued, without material change, up to the middle of the century. Some improvement was noticeable in cattle and appliances, and in some sections dairy farming became a specialty. With the growth of towns and cities, the business of milk supply increased and better methods prevailed. Butter-making for home use and local trade, in a small way, was common wherever cows were kept, and in some places there was a surplus sufficient to be sent to the large markets. Vermont and New York became known as butter producing States. “Franklin County butter,” from counties of this name in New York, Vermont, and Massachusetts, was known throughout New England, and the fame of “Orange County” and “Goshen” butter, from New York, was still more extensive. New York, Ohio, and Northern Pennsylvania produced large quantities of cheese; and the total supply was so much in excess of domestic demand, that cheese exports from the United States, mainly to Great Britain, became established, and ranged from three to seventeen million pounds a year.

The twenty-five years following 1850 was a period of remarkable activity and progress in the dairy interests of the country. At first, the agricultural exhibitions or “cattle shows,” and the enterprise of importers, turned attention towards the improvement of farm animals, and breeds of cattle specially noted for dairy qualities were introduced and began to win the favor of dairymen. Then the early efforts at coöperative dairying were recognized as successful, and were copied until the cheese factory became an established institution. Once fairly started, in the heart of the great cheese-making district of New York, the factory system spread with much rapidity. The “war period” lent additional impetus to the forward movement. The foreign demand for cheese grew fast, and the price, which was ten cents per pound and less in 1860, rose to fifteen cents in 1863, and to twenty cents and over in 1865. There were two cheese factories in Oneida County in 1854, and twenty-five in 1862. The system spread to Herkimer and adjoining counties, and in 1863 there were 100 factories in New York, besides some in Ohio and other States. The number increased to 300 in the whole country in 1865, to 600 in two years more, and to over 1000 in 1869. From that time the coöperative or factory system practically superseded the manufacture of cheese on farms. Establishments for the making of butter in quantity, from the milk or cream collected from numerous farms, soon followed the cheese factories. Such are properly butter factories, but the name of “creamery” has come into general use for an establishment of this kind, and seems unlikely to change. Placing the real beginning of cheese factories as a system of dairying in 1861 or 1862, the first creamery was started in 1861, in Orange County, New York. In Illinois, the first cheese factory was built in 1863, and the first creamery in 1867; in Iowa, the respective dates were 1866 and 1871.

The effect of these industrial establishments, comparatively new in kind, is to transfer the making of butter and cheese from the farm to the factory. Originating in this country, although now extensively adopted in others, the general plan may be called the American system of associated dairying. The early cheese-factories and creameries were purely coöperative concerns, and it is in this form that the system has usually extended into new territory, whether for the production of butter or cheese. The cow owners and producers of milk coöperate and share, upon any agreed basis, in organizing, building (perhaps), equipping, and managing the factory and disposing of its products. Another plan is for the plant to be owned by a joint-stock company, composed largely, if not wholly, of farmers, and milk or cream is received from any satisfactory producer; the factory may be allowed a certain rate of interest on the investment, or may charge a fixed price per pound for making butter or cheese, and then divide the remaining proceeds pro rata according to the raw material supplied by its “patrons.” The proprietary plan is also common, being managed much like any other factory, the proprietor or company buying the milk or cream from the producers, at prices mutually agreed upon from time to time. And all these plans have their variations and modifications in practice.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

The following table gives approximately an exhibit of the quantity and value of the dairy products of the United States in the year 1900:—

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.