7 2 AGRICULTURAL DISCONTENT 



he joined in cooperative marketing and purchasing activities, helped 

 organize a cooperative creamery and subsequently a cooperative fire in- 

 surance venture. As a clerk in the governor's office for seventeen years, 

 Haecker developed a keen appreciation of public needs and became closely 

 identified with a movement to promote a "more, practical education" for 

 the students of the University of Wisconsin's college of agriculture. In 

 1891, Haecker himself enrolled in the university's department of dairy 

 husbandry, reputedly the first of its kind in the world. His superiors im- 

 mediately recognized his practical knowledge of buttermaking; first he 

 was made an assistant and later he was placed in full charge of "the 

 home dairy work." That same year he went to the University of Minne- 

 sota as an instructor in buttermaking. 



On moving to Minnesota, Haecker recommended that the farmers there 

 make butter the main product of the state. In the manufacture of cheese, 

 they would be unable to compete with Wisconsin, with its more advan- 

 tageous freight rates. On Haecker's urging, the Minnesota dairy school 

 placed its principal emphasis on high-quality butter and the control of 

 conditions surrounding buttermaking. A short course was established to 

 train the older men who were already engaged in the industry, while the 

 full-school-year courses prepared the younger men. It is estimated that 

 some 2,500 creamery operators, trained in the dairy division of the Uni- 

 versity of Minnesota, were influenced directly or indirectly by Haecker's 

 training. 35 



Haecker knew the history of cooperative experiments in Wisconsin 

 well, from Granger times on down, and was particularly impressed by 

 the program of a Danish community at Clarks Grove in Freeborn County, 

 Minnesota. With this as a model, he took steps to promote the cause of 

 cooperative creameries throughout Minnesota. To answer requests for 

 information, he prepared a bulletin, "Organizing Co-operative Cream- 

 eries," which was published by the University of Minnesota Agricultural 

 Experiment Station. This marked the beginning of a development which 

 was not to stop until the Minnesota producers became nationally famous. 

 When Haecker began to advocate cooperatives, there were probably not 

 more than four cooperative creameries in Minnesota. Ten years later the 



35. E. E. Edwards, "T. L. Haecker, The Father of Dairying in Minnesota," 

 Minnesota History, XIX (June, 1938), p. 149-57. 



