COOPERATIVES: EARLY PHASES 7 1 



cooperatively, they logically turned their attention to marketing it in the 

 same way. In the beginning, the factories sold individually to country 

 buyers who purchased on their own account or as representatives of 

 dealers in central markets. As the industry developed, cheese boards 

 sprang up at various points where buyers and sellers met, generally once 

 a week, to transact business. The boards, in line with what happened in 

 the purchase and sale of other commodities, established base prices for 

 the purchase of cheese. Eventually the cheese board at Plymouth, Wis- 

 consin, made up of important cheese dealers and producers, came to 

 dominate the market and became the chief factor in determining the 

 price of cheese in the United States. 33 



Equally important in Wisconsin was the cooperative marketing of 

 butter. A survey conducted in 1914 by the Wisconsin State Dairy and 

 Food Commission revealed that 380 creameries were cooperatively owned. 

 Two years later these cooperatives represented 45 per cent of all the 

 creameries in the state and paid the farmers better than three cents a 

 pound more for their butterfat than the prices offered by the private 

 creameries; they also paid their buttermakers $10 a month more than the 

 wages current in the private creameries. The cooperatives were able to do 

 this because they could command a higher price for their butter; also, they 

 were in a better position than the private owners to control the quality 

 of their cream. 34 



The development of the cooperative creamery movement in Minnesota 

 was equally remarkable. In this state dairying began first to supplement, 

 then to supplant the raising of wheat. As has already been noted, the 

 name of Theophilus Levi Haecker loomed large in the history of Minne- 

 sota's dairy industry. Born of German immigrant stock in Ohio on May 

 4, 1846, Haecker moved with his parents to Dane County, Wisconsin, 

 seven years later. Here he eventually acquired a reputation as a dairy 

 farmer and made the acquaintance of William R. Taylor, the Granger 

 governor of Wisconsin. Haecker became a leader in local Grange affairs; 



33. Senate Document 95, 70 Congress, i session, p. 10; Steen, Cooperative Mar- 

 feting, pp. 158-63. 



34. B. H. Hibbard and Asher Hobson, "The Marketing of Wisconsin Butter," 

 University of Wisconsin Agricultural Experiment Station, Bulletin 270 (Madison, 

 1916), pp. 3-11, 66-69. 



