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Lawrence Daily Journal-World (Lawrence, Kansas)
Dairyman’s Comment Reflects Industry History in Kansas “It appears to be a kind of unavoidable law in Kansas that every individual and every industry that gets a foothold upon her soil must first pass through some trying ordeal. A certain amount of shadow must be passed before we can be permitted to bask in the bright sunshine.” This was a comment made in 1899 by J. G. Otis, president of the Kansas Dairy Association, to those attending the second annual meeting. It expresses very well the story of the 100 years of dairying in Kansas since statehood. At the beginning of statehood, dairy products were limited to home production of butter and cheese. Farmer’s wives were the butter and cheese makers, producing “fresh country butter” and cottage and soft, porous, granular cheese. Records show that Kansas had 28,000 “milch cows” at this time and that the annual home production of cheese was 29,045 pounds and butter 1,093,279 pounds. Only homemade butter and cheese was produced until the establishment of butter plants and cheese factories in the 1870’s. Handicapped by insufficient and unsuitable equipment and unfavorable processing conditions, housewives turned out butter and cheese of varying quality. During the 1880’s, poor quality butter became such a drug on the market that it sold for only six to eight cents per pound for use as shortening and in soap-making, while butter of good quality, put up in attractive lots, was commanding a price of 16 to 18 cents. During this era of home production of butter it became common practice for each family to develop its own butter mold that imprinted a special design on the top of the pound prints. This distinctive design became the trade mark of each home manufacturing butter. These early butter molds can be found in homes today as heirlooms of this early-day industry. Home production of cheese and butter continued as the only market outlet for dairy products until the 1870’s. During the forepart of this period cheese factories were started to provide a more profitable way of disposing of surplus milk and cream. The date of the founding of the first cheese factory cannot be determined; however, the 1873 Report of the State Board of Agriculture notes that eight factories were in operation during that year. These early factories produced a soft, porous, granular cheese characteristic of that made by the farm wife. Poor quality milk and inexperienced cheese makers contributed to many cheese plant failures. Pasteurization was then unknown and the use of a starter to improve flavor was not yet in use. With the advent of creameries and later improvements in the marketing of cream, factory production of cheese declined to a point that, at the close of the 19th Century, only a few of the 40 early cheese plants were in operation. James DeCoursey of Leavenworth is credited with founding the first creamery in Kansas in 1879. These early creameries operated under the whole-milk system, farmers delivering their whole milk to the plant. Rope driven separators, powered by water wheels or treadmills operated by horses or oxen, skimmed the farmers’ milk. The skim milk was then returned to the farm for use as livestock feed. During the 1880’s, professional promoters organized stock company creameries in many Kansas counties. Many of these stock companies were formed by promoters who sold nearly twice the amount of stock necessary and thereby pocketed a handsome profit. Operation of these creameries was often placed in the hands of inexperienced operators. Individually owned and stock company creameries numbered over 500 during this period. Lack of sufficient volumes of cream, inexperienced management and the extremely high investments in many of the stock companies resulted in a wave of creamery failures. There were so many failures that to mention a creamery to a dairyman was like waving a red flag in the face of a bull. George Hanna of Clay Center, in discussing “The Past, Present, and Future of the Dairy Industry” in 1904, described the years of 1886 to 1888 as years of fires and failures for the industry – a period when you could neither borrow money or write insurance on fully 75 per cent of the creameries in the state. Creameries remaining in business during this period compensated for the low volume of cream by establishing “skimming stations” in communities adjoining their creamery. Here, farmers could deliver their whole milk and have [it] forwarded to the creamery for processing. With the end of churning operations in bankrupt creameries, many of these establishments were converted to skimming stations. In all, over 1,000 skimming stations were in operation during the days of the whole-milk creameries. During the 1890’s a new system of creamery operation was introduced, known as the gathered operating wagons specially equipped with a big container for gathering cream at the farm. At this time the hand operated separator was being introduced on farms. Cream routes, operated by the creamery, picked up both hand skimmed and separator cream. The problem of arriving at the correct value of the cream was vexing to these early gathered cream operations. It became the rule that one inch of cream in a can 12 inches in diameter was equivalent to one pound of butter. Variations in the operation of the hand separator and hand skimming made this a very unreliable system. A butter oil test was then used which involved placing a sample of the farmer’s cream in a glass tube, churning the sample and paying for the butterfat contained therein. This also was very unreliable and unsatisfactory. It was not until introduction of the Babcock butterfat test in the latter part of the 90’s that the gathered cream system became commonly accepted and replaced the whole-milk system. The gathered cream system, like the whole-milk system, demanded increased cream volume for efficient operation. Establishment of local cream buying stations answered this volume problem and led the way to formation of “centralizer” creameries. This method well suited Kansas conditions for there were relatively few communities where the dairy cow population was sufficient to support operation of a creamery relying entirely on volume produced within the local hauling distance. Over 2,000 cream stations were established in Kansas under this system of creamery operation. The centralizer creameries and a few small local creameries dominated the butter business for many years. However, the unhappy experience of the 1880’s “stock-holder” companies were eventually forgotten and in June of 1921 the first really successful “cooperative creamery” was established at Linn, as the Washington County Cooperative Creamery Association. Butter production enjoyed a steady growth through the fore-part of the 20th Century reaching and all-time peak of 90,632,000 pounds in 1935. Competition with other products such as oleomargarine and a public trend to consume fewer high fat foods has reduced the demand for butter. In recent years the production of sweet cream butter has exceeded the sour cream output. The gathered cream system has largely been replaced by cream separated in other dairy plant operations. Today the farm sale of cream has become a minor farm enterprise. Most whole milk sales are made to Grade A and manufacturing milk plants. The surplus cream from fluid milk plants and other operations such as the processing of non-fat dry milk powder is becoming an important source of the cream used in butter making. This has resulted in a shift of butter production from the once popular centralizer creamery to butter making operations combined with other dairy products. After the unsuccessful years of early cheese production in the 1870’s and the dominance of the butter industry that followed, the manufacture of cheese did not make a comeback until about the second quarter of the 20th Century. Cheese production changed from the porous, granular type cheese to the cheddar type when Frank Traughner, operating a plant at Lawrence in 1893, produced the first aged cheddar cheese. Mr. Traughner originated a telescope hoop 5 ¾ inches in diameter, and 12 inches high. He called the cheese ”Uncle Sam’s.” Uncle Sam’s became popular with grocers because each one-inch cut would yield approximately one pound of cheese. In 1897 he established a factory in Dickinson County that produced only Uncle Sam’s. The demand for Uncle Sam’s cheese by groceries in Texas, Colorado, New Mexico and Arizona far exceeded the production of his plant. A grocery jobbing house in Texas wrote to a Wisconsin plant to have this type of cheese made, requesting that it be labeled “Longhorn” in honor of the Longhorn steer. Mr. Traughner can, therefore, be credited with originating the Longhorn cheddar cheese. Production of cheddar cheese remained at less than a million pounds a year until the 1930’s. Development of improved highways and more efficient truck transportation made it possible for the cheese factories to gather sufficient quantities of whole milk. With these changes, cheese production increased steadily until a peak of 16,497,000 pounds was reached in 1947. Subsequently, competition with other products such as ice cream, ice milk, cottage cheese, non-fat dry milk and increased Grade A milk consumption has held the production of cheddar cheese at a level of about 12 to 13 million pounds annually. Large-scale ice cream production, however, did not occur until the development of ammonium type refrigeration for operating large batch and continuous type freezers. Mechanically refrigerated cabinets for retail sales and many other advancements in quality control of ice cream occurred during the latter part of the 1920’s and early 1930’s. Counter tub freezers made their appearance in restaurants and recreation establishments in the late 1930’s. These small business installations were the forerunner of the drive-ins that developed a new and big business in the sale of ice milk. The earliest production figures show that in 1940 only 18,000 gallons of ice milk was produced. Since 1940, ice milk production has steadily increased each year with the production of over 3 ½ million gallons being reported in 1959. Production from nearly 700 counter freezer establishments and from regular ice milk plants have supplied this growing industry. The ice cream industry, during the past two decades, has also been growing. However, the peak in production of ice cream occurred in 1946 at 8,146,000 gallons and since has leveled off to about six million gallons per year. Canned Milk Produced in 1914 Production of condensed, evaporated and dry milk products was not initiated in the state until the 20th Century. Unsweetened, evaporated canned milk was first produced in 1914 by the Borden Company at Fort Scott. The exact date when the first condensed and dry milk products were made in Kansas is not available because these industries were initiated in dairy plants as operations to provide an outlet for surplus milk during seasonal peaks in milk production. A few plants have established full time condensing and drying operations. Consumption of fluid milk in the home has been a big factor in the changes in the manufactured dairy products industry. Early pioneers in Kansas owned their own milk cow if the wanted a milk supply for the home. Surplus milk from the family cow was the beginning of the home production era of butter and cheese. As towns and villages grew, it soon became profitable for one or more individuals in the town to own enough cows to supply the milk needs of the residents. The cows were milked at barns in town and grazed in nearby pastures. Milk customers brought their own containers to the town dairy for filling. Delivery service was the next improvement. Route wagons drove from house to house dispensing milk from large containers into crocks and pitchers provided by housewives. At about the turn of the century, glass bottles were introduced and bottled milk delivery replaced bulk milk wagons. Pasteurized milk was first introduced in 1904 by the Wichita Pure Milk Company. |
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| Transcribed by Erica DeCoursey
2010 |
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