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Wisconsin Dairymen's Association / Eleventh annual report of the Wisconsin Dairymen's Association : held at Elk-horn, Wis., January 31, and February 1 and 2, 1883. Report of the proceedings, annual address of the president, and interesting essays relating to the dairy interests
(1883)
Roberts, I. P.
The past, present, and future of dairying, pp. 70-79
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Page 72
7 LzvU'rH ANNiUAL RzrOr OF THE They felt sure that the Lord had instituted a monopoly of good butter districts, and that He had granted to a few indi- viduals the first and only letters patent. How the butter makers of Wisconsin and Iowa shake their sides as they read some of the dairy literature of half a century since. In 1850, the United States produced, in round numbers, 313,000,000 pounds of butter and 105,000,000 pounds of cheese. The eight factories (not associated) produced $867,000 worth, or, say, 670,000 pounds. In 1851, the first associated cheese factory was organized; in 1860, the census report recorded but two, which employed seven hands, with an invested capital of $8,000, using upwards of $9,000 worth of material and producing $13,400 worth of products. In this decade the butter production had increased 1,500,000 pounds, while cheese production had fallen off nearly 2,000,000 of pounds. Ten years later, in 1870, there were 1,313 cheese factories, which produced nearly $17,000,000 worth of cheese (or, say, 170,000,000 pounds), which, added to the 53,000,000 made on farms, makes a sum total of 223,000,000 pounds, or a gain of 119,000,000 pounds (over 100 per cent.) over 1860, while the production of butter had increased in the same time but 54,000,000 pounds. In 1850, we produced almost exactly three pounds of butter to one of cheese; in 1870, only a little over two pounds of butter to one of cheese. PRESENT. In 1880, the number of gallons of milk sold and sent to factories was 529,974,992, divided as follows: Sent to facto- ries, 343,490,981 gallons; sold, 186,484,061 gallons. The cheese made in factories was 215,885,361 pounds, and that made on farms was 27,272,489 pounds; total, 243,157,850 pounds. The butter made in factories was 29,421,784 pounds, and on farms 777,250,287 pounds; total, 806,672,071 pounds. Calling the milk sold worth eight cents per gallon on the farm, the cheese ten cents and the butter twenty-five cents per pound, the account would stand as follows: Value of milk sold, $14,918,724; of cheese manufactured, $24,317,785; of butter, $201,618,018; total value, $240,854,527. Add to this the value of milk consumed on the farm, and also the value of veals and pigs raised, and it may be safely stated that the total 72
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