7 AGRICULTURAL DISCONTENT 



a cooperative basis. These "cheese rings," because they saved labor and 

 commanded better prices for their product, soon began to appear in great 

 numbers in Massachusetts, New York, and Wisconsin. 30 



Wisconsin made rapid strides as a cooperative cheese-manufacturing 

 state. Favorable climatic and topographical conditions, a growing foreign 

 demand, and the coming of Swiss immigrants helped the cheese industry 

 off to a good beginning. The influx of the Swiss, beginning about 1845, 

 into Green County and the adjoining parts of Iowa and Lafayette counties 

 contributed greatly to the growth of cooperative cheese making, but the 

 knowledge, skills, and habits of these people were not enough to repro- 

 duce the Swiss cheese industry. Superior Swiss cheese required a milk of 

 higher quality than that used to make ordinary cheddar, limburger, or 

 brick. When economic forces compelled an adjustment to geographic 

 conditions, the cheese factories had to locate "on the highlands to the 

 west and along the Lake Michigan shore counties to the northeast." 31 

 Furthermore, the "old dairy farm" system of production soon began to 

 give way to the cheese factory, which was better equipped, reduced 

 wastage and manufacturing costs, and produced a more nearly uniform 

 product for market. Freed from the work of cheese making at home, the 

 dairy farmer was now able to keep more cows and to give them better 

 attention than ever before. It was estimated that in 1915 there were 718 

 cooperative and 1,211 private cheese factories in Wisconsin. 32 



Once the dairy producers had succeeded in manufacturing their cheese 



30. Cooperative Marketing (70 Congress, i session, Senate Document 95, serial 

 8859, Washington, 1928), p. 7; for early data on cooperative cheese production in the 

 United States, see Steen, Cooperative Marketing, pp. 156-57. 



31. S. M. Babcock and H. L. Russell, "The Cheese Industry: Its Development 

 and Possibilities in Wisconsin," University of Wisconsin Agricultural Experiment 

 Station, Bulletin 60 (Madison, 1897), pp. 5-6; H. C. Taylor and C. E. Lee, "Progress 

 of the Dairy Industry in Wisconsin," ibid., Bulletin 210 (1911), pp. 24-26. See also 

 H. L. Russell, "Dairy Industry in Wisconsin," ibid., Bulletin 88 (1901); O. E. Baker, 

 "Agricultural Regions of North America," Economic Geography, II (October, 1926), 

 p. 464; Glenn T. Trewartha, "The Green County, Wisconsin, Foreign Cheese In- 

 dustry," ibid., (April, 1926), pp. 292-308. 



32. E. H. Farrington and G. H. Benkendorf, "Organization and Construction 

 of Creameries and Cheese Factories," University of Wisconsin Agricultural Experi- 

 ment Station, Bulletin 244 (Madison, 1915), p. 3; B. H. Hibbard and Asher Hobson, 

 "Markets and Prices of Wisconsin Cheese," ibid., Bulletin 251 (1915), pp. 24-28 

 (see map on page 22). 



