Camas Prairie chronicle. [volume] (Cottonwood, Idaho) 1901-1917, 1916-03-17
Cheese Making in The
Rocky Mountain States

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making in different sections of
the western states, particularly
on the irrigated projects, received
considerable attention from spe-
cialists of the U. S. Department
of Agriculture during the summer
of 1915. A representative of the
dairy division spent a number of
months among factories in Idaho |
and Montana studying the troub-
les experienced in making cheese
of a satisfactory quality, and in
seeking means of overcoming
these difficulties.
In Idaho, very successful fac
tories are now..in. operation near
Boise and Buhl. AT Boise a large
cooperative company owns two
cheese factories and one cream
cry. The cheese factories have
proved so popular with the farm
ers that..the company intends to
build other factories of the same
kind. The factory at Bull at one
time last summer paid for butter
fat IL cents a pound more than
was paid in any other market in
the same locality, and at no time
was this difference less than 6
cents.
Owing to an inadequate milk
supply and poor management,
there have been failures of cheese
factories in both Idaho and Mon
tana. The climate and all other
natural conditions. however, are
lgood for a cheese industry
| throughout Montana and in the
higher parts of Idaho. On the
intensively farmed irrigation pro-
jects the dairy COW furnishes a
good medium through which to
market bulky crops of alfalfa and
corn.
The prices which a cheese fac
tory is able to pay for butter fat,
in competition with other mark
cts, can readily be estimated if
the price of cheese is known.
Milk makes 2.7 pounds of cheese
for each pound of butter fat.
The cost of manufacture is about
2 cents a pound in factories OF
ordinary size. Cheese at 10 cents
a pound would allow the payment
of 29.7 cents a pound Of butter
fat; at Ia cents for cheese, 32.4
cents for fat; at Is cents for
cheese, 35.1 for fat, and at 16C
for cheese, 37.8c would be paid
for butter fat. During the past
summer great quantities of cheese
] were sold in the Rocky Mountain
States at price higher than II
cents pound, while probably
none brought less than IL cents
In certain localities, some farm
ers not familiar with cheese fac
tories are inclined at first to op
pose the industry because it use
skinned milk formerly available
" for calves and hogs. This oppo
o sition is not we'll founded, a
u nearly every farmer in the grea
= cheese-factory district of Sheboy
o gan county, Wis, is able to rails
y excellent dairy cows. The irri
gated regions of the west, more
. over, produce great quantities 0
: alfalfa, which furnishes a chea
IS substitute for the protein of skim
30 med milk for pigs. Experiment
90 by the New Mexico experimen
90 station have demonstrated tina
% where alfalfa pasture is availabl
and corn is worth 80 cents a bush
ell, a hundredweight of skimme
90 milk is worth only IA cents, q
compared to nearly 80 cents wher
10 there is no alfalfa. 1t is probabl
90 that, with pigs on alfalfa pasture
o, whey would.gives almost as gre;
% gains as would skinned milk.
% % In the flush of the season
cheese factory can be operate
,, economically on $500 pounds
milk, or the product of about q
n cows. This milk should be pr
=. duced within A miles of the ia
tory, as a longer haul is not &c
nomical and increases the dang
r.. of had milk and moor cheese.