Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1892-07-11
The Dairy industry.

The dairy industry is of such nature
/ that few people can realize its magnitude
until their attention is especially called to
it. Let us compare wheat-growlng with
butter making. In enumerating tho provl-
sions for a family IA barrel of -four per an
mum for each Individual is fair allowance.
About five bushels of wheat are required
/ for this barrel of flour, worth a little over
/ 81 at present prices, or say 50 Tor the bar
rel of -four The butter allowance for Il
! family is about one pound per individual
member for each week, or say fifty pounds
per year. At twenty cents per pound this
/ is $40, or at twenty-five cents,
about the average price for good butter,n is
/ $3.50. Taking the smaller of these two
/ sums we have the cost of the butter con-
sumed BY our people as fully twice the cost
of the wheat. But in addition to butter
there is the cheese and especially the milk,
| the value of the latter amounting to an
enormous sum in the aggregate. Without
the figures it is doubtful Il il would be con
| coded that dairy products cost the people OF
our country two or three times as much as
the wheat they consume.
/ 1t is probable that no Improvements III
! the manufacture of flour will materially
increase its use. Enormous as is the con
sumption of dairy products the limit Is by
no means yet reached. The general adop-
ton of the creamery system through tie
| West is substituting a good product for
poor one, and an overwhelming circle of
consumers are learning the taste of good
/ butter. For wears past the cry has been
heard in the Northwest that dairying would
be overdone. and vet the prices for
creamery butter have he'll up the
best of any agricultural product
all things considered. A market can longer
stand rise in quality than a mere increase
of receipts and the change in the butter
market has been largely in the direction of
a superior proinct rather than mere gross
output Slowly the sale of milk and cream
in the cities is coming under better manage
ment and better quality is placed before
the consumers Great changes for the bet
ter are sure TO come i'll this most. inviting
field, and with the changes Will come a
largely-incrcascd consumption.
/ In the matter of cheese the situation is
far less hopeful. With a persistency that
seems little short of business suicide cheese
manufacturers seem bending their whole
energies toward discovering and manufac-
turing cheap substitute instead of IA better
genuine article. This is just the opposite
of what improvements in butter-making
have been. The state of Ohio set the ex-
ample with skim cheese and is now known
as a ''skim-cheese state Illinois never
( had very good reputation and New York
is tampering with the skinner and daily
losing reputation that has been
worth millions to her. Wisconsin
has reputation for good cheese that
has cost couple of decades of time and
the energy of some of her most enterprising
dairymen. Even in that state there is "a
+ dilatory spirit and willingness to put as
little fat as possible into a cheese, still
hoping to get the full market price for the
( product Only the Provinces of Canada
stand on an entirely honest and fair plat
/ form of ful-crcam cheese and no adult
iteration or substitution in any possible form.
! With our people dallying in
the matter and doubling the policy
of making honest goods, and with
all the poor cheese coming into the market.
it is difficult to see how consumption can be
materially increased in fact our people are
! gradually coming to let cheese alone and
/ substituting other food products in its stead
: Except for the situation in regard to
/ cheese the dairy business of the country is
in excellent shape aud progressing in a
( most satisfactory manner. Enormous as it
! already is there is yet room and prospect
for great increase Breeders Gazette.