The Kenosha telegraph. [volume] (Kenosha, Wis.) 1860-1888, 1871-02-02
FARMERS COLUMN.
THE CHEESE CROP OF 1870.
BY L. B. ARNOLD.
From the N. Y. Tribune,

IL Is not necessary TO 60 DaCk many
years to reach the time when the only dis
turbing element in the annual production
of cheese in the United States worthy OF
consideration was the variation of sea-
sons. A good or bad season for grass was
the main thing that effected the quantity,
and raised and lowered the price OF
cheese. The export demand which sprang
up before the factory system came into
vogue, had not then assumed sufficient
Importance to produce much effect upon
the market. Now new items must be
taken into the account in estimating a
cheese crop and the influences that are
brought to bear in disposing of it.
The introduction of cheese factories has
made great change by diverting milk
from the manufacture of butter to the
manufacture of cheese. Formerly, chang
es from butter making to cheese making
were infrequent, or at least gradual. Now
they are annually occurring on large
scale
In ten years the number Of factories
has increased from single factory to g.
600. At first they were built only in
cheese producing districts, and were sup
piled with the milk of COWS that had tor
merly been devoted to cheese-making,
and hence did not effect the total amount
of the old cheese districts were exceeded,
and then the milk formerly appropriated
to butter-maklng began TO be used for
cheese.
These changes have increased from
year to year, TIL, at the close of 1869, che
milk of about 100000 cows in the United
States has been turned from the manufac
ture of butter to that of cheese, just about
one-half OF the factories $1,000 averaging
400 eacb) being located where butter had
formerly been made. These great chang
es in the use Of milk have had their inf1u-
ence in the relative aggregates of butter
and cheese produced Reckoning 1876
pounds as the annual yield of butter per
cow, the aggregate at that time was di-
mished 54,000,000 pounds; and reckoning
300 pounds as the yield per cow of cheese,
the total product of cheese was increased
120,000,000 pounds by factories erected
outside of the old cheese-producing dis
tricts.
From 1850 to 1865. little change occur
red in the quantity Of cheese produced
It was about the latter date when cheese
factories began to reach into territory
where cheese had not been made before,
and large share of factories erected
since that date have been located where
cheese was comparatively new product
Up to the present year the increase of
factories has been quite uniform, multip-
lying almost in the regular geometrical
series with two for a ratio
Last spring an unusual number went
into operation, the best informed persons
estimate the number at 1000. Thus in
the Spring the country was prepared for
the production of an enormous crop, one
that would that would be far in excess
of any thingever produced before, if the
season and all other circumstances had
proved favorable. But few factories
were last spring built IN the old cheese
districts 1t is fair to count three
fourths of them in territory were cheese
had not been made before. If we
recken that those contain 400 COWS each
(the usual average nnmber), we shall find
that 100000 cows have been turned from
butter to cheese in one year, making an
addition of 90,O000O0 to last years
yield of 10000, 600, and total this year
of $50, 100000 pounds.
But this large addition to the crop of
of last year has not been made. In the
first place, SO far DIS can learn, milk has
been about five per cent poorer in quality
in most of the principals cheese districts
this year than usual. 1t has required
nearly half pound more milk this year
than last to make pound of cheese.
Though in some loca Titles it has been
about as good as usual, the depreciation
has been quite general throughout the
country This difference in the value of
milk will make, on basis of $4,000, 900
an abatement of some 100000 or &c..
100000, pounds.
In localities were cheese only has been
made for series of years, cheese only
will be made throughout the entire sea-
son. There is no change with dairy
men is such sections /; though butter runs
up and cheese runs down, they will make
cheese as long as milk flows. They
only make butter when cheese cannot be
made every day, or when the milk is
very rich. But this rule does not
prevail where dairymen had formely been
in the habit of making butter. These
new cheese makers are not unwilling to
return to their old occupation. Indeed
they watch, with an eye as keen as that
which WaIl-st. watches fer a chance
in finance, the relative prices of butter
and cheese, present and prospective, and
change from one to the other as readily
as occasion may dictate. Is
In the latter part of the summer and
the early part of the Fall the price OF
butter compared with that of cheese, was
relatively high, and most of the factories
in the new districts closed early, some oil
them as early as the first of September
and others during the month, and more
In October. and almost all of that class of