The Mankato free press. [volume] (Mankato, Blue Earth County, Minn.) 1879-1924, 1882-08-11
Dairylng in the Far West.

A few years ago, when the dairy
experts of New York and Massachu-
sets came west tn instruct the PEG.
pie of Illinois and Wisconsin in the
art of handling milk, the care of
mich cows, and the manufacture Of
butter and cheese, they were not very |
or hopeful in the remarks
they made in conventions or in priv
ate conversation. Ii their opinion !
the promised land of dairymen had
been discovered and occupied by their
fathers, and nothing equal to it was
to be found in the continent. They
acknowledged that grass could be
grown in this section of the country,
hut in their opinion it would be very
inferior to that produced in the States
farther east. where the soil had been
under cultivation for several decades
and had improved under very judi
ciOus management. The grasses they
found here were rank and coarse and
destitute of the sweetness and fine
flavor necessary to make milk that
would produce tirst-class butter and
cheese. They had much fault to find
sufficiently abundant, and the quality
was not up to their standard. The
air, too, was impure and often laden
with malaria. They thought that
butter and cheese could be produced
here with some degree of profit, hut
that the articles produced would rank
rs greatly inferior to those made in
the old settled regions, where nature
and art had united in perfecting Il
country for dairying. They would
not he suitable to supply the aristO-
cratic consumers i'm large cities but
they might answer for common peO-
pie who had not the means to pur-
chase Orange county butter and
cheese made i'm the valley of Mohawk
They would, of course, sell for Il very
low price on account of their inferior
quality.
a very short time has been suf-
ticient to change public sentiment in
regard to the dairy capabilities of the
western States and territories. They
are surprising the eastern States in
the amount of grass produced if not
indeed in the quality Of it. 1t has
been demonstrated that it is not neces
sary to keep land In cultivation many
years OF even to break the sod in Or
der to introduce the most valuable
pasture.grasses. The virgin sod of
many pastures that produce luXuriant
crops of orchard and blue grass and
white clover was never touched by
the plOw. The land whose fertility
was never exhausted by producing
several successive crops of corn and
grain, us has been the case with that
in the east, yields bountiful crops of
grass and clover. AS roads have been
built and land drained, the coarse ma
tural grasses have disappeared, and
| those most suited for paSturage have
taken their places. In many sections
springs and streams have been i'm
proved and u vast number of wells
have been dug and supplied with wind
pumps. All the knowledge that has
been acquired in the east in relation
to dairying has been brought here,
and many improved methods have
been originated by western dairy
men. Western dairy products no
longer signify inferior dairy products.
| The butter and cheese made i'm Wis
cOnsin, Illinois, and Iowa bring as
high prices in home or foreign mar
kets as those made in any of the
eastern States. They are produced
much cheaper on account of the COM
paratively low price of land. They
are also marketed to much better ad-
vantage. Western dairymen have the
choice of both eastern and western
markets. During several years past
there has been such competition for
carrying dairy products from the west
to the east that butter anu cheese
have been taken from Iowa to Boston
cheaper than they have from Yer.
mont.
The west now surpasses the east in
the excellence of its butter and cheese
factories. The largest combined fac
tory in the world, it is said, is located
at fremont, Neb. The building is
fifty by hundred feet on the ground,
two and half stories high, built en-.
tirely of brick and stone, has ventil.
ated walls, and cost with the fixtures
$25. 900. Milk and cream are brought
to it a distance of nearly fifty miles
by cars. 1t has capacity of working
up forty thousand pounds of milk per
day. The manufacture of butter and
cheese, as well as the production of
meat and grain, is fast moving west.
lhe amount of buckwheat raised