The Iola register. [volume] (Iola, Allen County, Kansas) 1875-1902, 1882-06-23
American Competition in Cheese Max.
ing.

Commenting upon the above-named
subject, q correspondent OF the London
Agricultural Gazette writes as follows:
No one can insist too strongly on the
necessity of much greater care than is
now shown by the many English cheese
makers, who are content to make cheese
in happy go-lucky fashion. 1t is quite
disheartening to see that even such q
simple appliance as the thermometer is
utterly disregarded in many farm-houses
The variations of the temperature of the
atmosphere for the time being seem to
have more influence, both in the making
and the storing of much of our English
cheese, than that necessary regulation Of
temperature which proper appliances
easily command. There seems to me q
great danger that not only will the as
sumption of the fact that the trade for
EngIish-made cheese is ruined influence
the turnout, but it will also so restrict it,
that the consumption of the public will
be supplied from other sources gradually
taking the place long held by sound En-.
glish cheese. Public taste is tickle. II
we now disappoint the public asking for
prime cheese, we may well have to
mourn the loss of demand which we
fail to supply.
During the grievous continuance of our
agricultural depression. when corn grow.
ing and sheep farming seemed ever
present sources of loss, men in all direc-
tons cried out that dairy farming alone
could save us from ruin. 1t was very
truly said that our towns were willing to
take up much larger supply of new
milk than the country had yet sent to
them. Well, we have now both prodig-
iously increased the quantity sent daily
to the centers of our dense population,
and fostered by speech. writing and ex-
ample the public taste for new milk. So
Tar so good. But it is by no means all
good. We have done, and are doing,
two things. We have brought about q
change from cheese-making to milk
selling so great that it is now almost a
rarity to find a cheese-making farmer.
Those who have once given up cheese
me ling seldom come back to it, and the
trick Of the trade is gone. This is one
thing not good. The other is-we have
glutted the market with new milk to such
an extent that dealers under contract are
at their wits end how to get out of their
superabundant and perishable stock.
Something must be done with it. Proba-
bly, we shall have it made, on the spur of
necessity, into inferior cheese and butter.
Meanwhile, the milk trade is {" all to
pieces" and heavy losses fall both on the
producer and the middleman.
As one who is content to ''stand on old
ways" and who sees with regret the alb
sence becoming yearly more conspicuous
Of fine English cheese, 1 wish to speak q
word on the folly of which, in my opin-
ION. we farmers are guilty in not paying
more attention to cheese-making. Sound
english cheese, fine in flavor and full of
quality, is an article of food full of whole
some nutriment, and cheap, when com.
pared with other foods. It is more than
the interest of the farmer which is in
volved-it is the interest of the consum-
ing public that fine cheese should still be
made: and it appears to me that our best
types of cheese, and those which are less
likely than thick or factory cheese to be
injured by American competition, can be
found in our midland counties. There
V Sill q ICiuHduU lClt III 1<CiCCStCISuuC,
;Derbyshire, and ether adjoining coun-
ties, who have not yet bowed down the
'knee to the new god of the dairy farmer.
With this remnant remains our chance
of keeping alive trade which has ia tho
midland counties held up to the value Of
land, and by which many tenants have
both lived and thriven.
An experience Of twenty-six years on
the same farm, during the whole Of
which time cheese has been its staple
produce, has taught me to expect fluctu-
atoms of more or less frequency and
range in its market value. As far rs my
judgment goes, all descriptions of dairy
produce are liable to fluctuations Of
value; and the more perishable the pro-
duce, the greater is the loss when tho
market is glutted. The trade, then, in
cheese, if we keep that trade alive by
the production of an article sufficiently
good to command attention, should be
more steady than that in milk. Below IS
. table of the prices made for series Of
twenty-six years with an average output
of f500 worth of cheese per annum:
1855, made 6ss per lao lb1sea made eas. per leoIh
1851, Sc. 1854. ses.