The Mankato free press. [volume] (Mankato, Blue Earth County, Minn.) 1879-1924, 1899-11-03
EVOLUTION OF THE
MODERN REA merry
Historical Sketch of the Past, Present
and Future of the Great Industry.
Minnesota Destined to Become the Great
Dairy Center of the United States.

The following article is from the pen
of G. 81, Riggs, manager of the Cream
cry Package Manufacturing Co., for
nAerly of this city and now of Mime
apolis, which we clip from the Sunday
issue of the Minneapolis Tribune:
Dairying is the largest industry in
the United States. The value of the
dairy products milk, butter and cheese
exceeds that of any other single
article of production, not only of the
farm but of the mine or factory as we'll
The annual revenue from dairying out
ranks that of wheat, corn, cotton, iron.
coal or any other commodity,
This statement will probably be new
to many, but reference to the last
government census, or to the bulletins
of the agricultural bureau, will readily
confirm it, The value of the
products of the dairy in the
United States in 1898 approx
mated $500, 600, 600. The number Of
mich COWS in the country January 1,
1899, is given by the United States
agricultural department as 16,OOO,OOO
valued at $475, 000,000 There are up
wards of 5000 creameries in the coun
try, representing an investment of
about $500, 1000, 900: probably $780, OOO.-
900 is invested in cheese factories, milk
condensing plants and private diaries,
making a total investment in the bust
ness, exclusive of land, barns, etc., of,
approximately, 5000, 600 900.
But the magnitude of the dairy in
dustry is perhaps less surprising than
it's marvellous growth during recent
years This growth has been immensely
greater than that of population, or
other industries generally, 1t has been
due principally to the adoption of the
creamery system of making butter,
which in turn has been made made
possible through the invention of labor
saving creamery machinery and the
discovery and adaptation of the
chemistry of buttersmaking, for butter
making is now a science in which
chemistry plays an important part.
Twenty five years ago creameries
were unknown-there was not one in
the country All butter was made on
the farm in individual diaries. A
creamery by the way, differs from a
dairy in that the latter
handles the milk from a
single farm or herd of COWS, while the
former receives and makes into butter
the milk from many farms.
Some Minnesota creameries handle
the milk from 400 to 500 patrons.
The advantages of the creamery over
the dairy system are many, the prln-
cipal ones being the large saving OF
labor, the greatly increased percentage
of butter obtained from the milk, and
the uniformity and higher character OF
the product.
In the old-fashioned farm dairy the
cream was raised by natural gravity on
milk set in tin pans, and was churned
in dash churn. Most of the men and
women of today have personal recol-
lection and acquaintance with the pro-
cess. Modern appliances for testing
milk and cream now show us that this
method only utilized about two
thirds of the cream or butter fat
that was in the milk, the other third
being lost. The type of cream separ-
ators now most generally used in
creameries gets practically all of the
cream out of the milk.
The old plan produced butter in
small quantities, OF. all kinds, shades,
tastes and odors. 1t came to market
in every conceivable kind of receptacle
from stone jar to bandanna hand
kerchief. There was no uniformity in
quality or appearance. Purchasing
butter was like buying lottery ticket.
The butter question was the bugDear OF
every city grocer and country mer-
chant.
The creamery has changed all this
While there is a wide difference be-
tween different makes of creamery
butter, it is but slight compared to that
of private diaries.
The comparative uniform quality of
the product of the creamery has led to
a more general and larger use of butter,
and the demand is constantly increas
ing. so much so that even with the
rapid multiplication of creameries,
there is no present prospect of oyer
production, especially as we have as
vet scarcely touched the immense ex-
port trade that awaits u.s.
We can furnish butter to half the
civilized world, as soon as we can pro-
duce it in excess of our own require
ments No country in the world can
produce butter as cheaply as ours, par
ticularly in the Northwestern states
where the climate, water and native
grasses are remarkably favorable to the
production of butter of the highest
quality and at the lowest cost.
The magnitude of the creamery bust
ness in this country today, however, is
perhaps less astonishing than the his
tory of it's remarkable growth, the en-
tire business, with all the machinery
and appliances used having been de
veloped within about 90 years, and the
major part Of it, including the prin-
cipal inventions and discoveries, me.
chanical and chemical within 10
years, scientific butter making, by the
way, being now chemical as well as a
mechanical process.
So rapid has been the development of
the business and so frequent and radi-
cal the changes and improvements, that
a creamery built five years ago is
obsolete today and entirely out of the
race in competition.
The experimental stages are now
PASSED, however, and it is not antici-
pated that the best machinery and
methods of today will be radically inn
proved on. In the earliest creameries
the cream was collected by wagons
from the farmers (who raised it from
the milk in ordinary milk pansl and
was churned and made into butter at a
central station, or creamery This
plan was soon found to be defective.
Its chief advantage was the saving of
DHla;1n ~ rarO6n0nd