Buchanan County bulletin. [volume] (Independence, Iowa) 1869-1891, 1875-11-19
How Our Cho... raosor... started.

While the system of individual
dairying was at its height there was,
by chance, convenient arrangement
invented in Oneida county which in
due time revolutionized the system of
cheese manufacture, and has given
the history of agriculture that method
which is known as ''the American
system of associated dairying." As
in the case Of many an important in
novation upon established customs,
the inventor builded more wisely than
he knew. Jesse Williams owned, in
1851, a private establishment for
cheese-making near Rome, in Oneida
county, New York. He had achieved
a reputation rs manufacturer of the
best quality of cheese. To him, as
to many others, this reputation was a
direct money value upon the market.
He could make contract tor better
price than others, and the demand
for his cheese was greater than the
supply. In the spring of 1851, one
OF Jesse Williams sons was married,
and went to live upon a dairy-farm
near his fathers. The cheese from
this farm Mr.. Williams contracted at
the same Price as his own, but there
was q necessity that it should be of
the same quality. This was the guam
dairy: how can the cheese be alike
when the father Is a skilled manutac-
turer and the son is not? This was
the question which Mr.. Williams had
to answer. 1t first occurred to him
that he could go each day to his sons
dalry-house and try to impart to his
son his own skill in manipulation
But this involved a great deal of
trouble, and Mr.. Williams second
thought was the principle OF associat-
ed dairylng, which will make his
name endure. 1t was happy thought
happy in its exceeding simplicity
and in its fitness to universal applica-
ton, as events have proved. Mr..
Williams could not go to the milk;
the milk must be brought to him.
The success which he attained in his
venture was the key note OF the sue
cess which has been gained by the
wide application of his method. Skill
cannot act in many places at the
same time, but skill is powerful over
masses Of material; one large estab-
lishment occasions less labor and eX-
pense than a dozen small ones, each
doing one-twelfth of its work; all
supplies are cheaper at Wholesale
These are some of the advantages
which have led to the adoption of the
American system. They were not
perceived at once. For three years
Mr. Williams and those who brought
milk to him profited by them. Dur
the next five years only three or four
establishments were erected each
year. Since that time the growth
has been rapid. In the year 1865
there were more than 500 factories in
operation in New York State. The
of the advantages of the
factory system give, at length, mar
velous impulse to the dairy industry.
Cheese-making, which was once mo-
by the rich counties of cen
trail New York, is now a flourishing
speciality in half dozen regions Of
the State. 1t was pushed westward,
shaping the productive ability of the
Western Reserve, finding favoring
conditions for growth in Illinois,
Wisconsin, Michigan and Iowa, and
gathering groups Of darles in almost
every other western state. 1t is just
now spreading anew in Pennsylvania.
TO the eastward, Massachusett and
Vermont have given it heartiest well
come, and Maine, youngest of the
dairy regions, promises to exert an
influence upon the supply.-Edacord
J. Wilkinson, in Harper's for No
vember.