No. 7. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. M 



THE DAIRY INDUSTRY IN PENNSYLVANIA. 



By Ur. William Freab. 



In reviewing the condition of any industry, it is important to 

 consider the improvement in methods, materials and products, the 

 various kinds of products and by-products made, the economic con- 

 ditions, such as cost of production, changes from domestic to fac- 

 tory manufacture, demand and supply, markets, competing indus- 

 tries, and related legislation. The data at command are too meagre 

 to make possible so exhaustive a discussion of the Pennsylvania 

 dairy industry. All that can be attempted, with present informa- 

 tion, is to suggest for consideration certain important facts bear- 

 ing upon the principal points mentioned. These, it is believed, will 

 be of interest, at this time, in view of the approach of the next 

 decennial census. 



EARLY IDEA OF DAIRY FARMING CONDITIONS. 



There was a time, not many years past, when it was believed that 

 only well watered states, rich in sweet-grassed pastures, could pro- 

 duce milk advantageously; when milk, buttei and cheese were the 

 only marketable dairy products; when the production of milk was 

 regarded as a constant element of all farm operations, and the 

 markets for milk and butter were sought only in the immediate 

 localities where those articles were produced. 



CHANGED CONDITIONS OF PRODUCTION. 



Within a few decades all this has been changed. The intro- 

 ^duction of the silo, the wide-spread adoption of the soiling sys- 

 tem, and the introduction of large amounts of cereal and oil-seed 

 bj'-product feeds into all farming localities, have been followed 

 by the extension of dairy farming into the great Middle West. 

 Domestic production of milk products has largely given way to 

 centralized factory manufacture. Cheap transportation has made 

 the West a powerful rival of the East in Eastern markets. Im- 

 proved methods of management, together with the use of refrig- 

 erator cars and ships, has made it possible to carry both milk and 

 butter from Chicago to Paris and return them in sound condition. 

 The city child drinks milk today that was yesterday taken from 

 herds four hundred miles distant. 



NEW MILK PRODUCTS. 



The dairy products marketed are no longer confined to milk, 

 cream, butter and cheese. Pasteurized milk has come to the front 

 for city consumption. Certified milk, with low bacterial content, 

 is recommended by the family doctor. Condensed milk, evapor- 

 ated milk and sweetened condensed milk made where and when 

 milk is cheap and abundant, appear as rivals of fresh milk wherever 

 the supply is scarce and the price high. Ice cream, twenty years 

 ago a rarely consumed luxury, is now an article of daily use, and 

 is sold as ice cream whether made from cream, milk, condensed 



