ig THE BUTTER INDUSTRY IN UNITED STATES [242 



vania, Ohio, and Wisconsin all claim the honor of first 

 organizing the cheese industry on a factory basis. 



Mr. A. Picket, who had driven ten cows from Ohio to 

 Rock Lake, Jefferson county, Wisconsin, settled there and 

 began supplying the demand for cheese in 1841. Mil- 

 waukee was then a small village, and a territorial road had 

 been laid out from this point to Madison over which people 

 began to travel. Mr. Picket was unable to supply the de- 

 mand for cheese occasioned by the development of the 

 State's resources, and at the suggestion of his wife entered 

 into a contract with his neighbors to receive their milk and 

 manufacture cheese. This was probably the first cheese 

 factory in the United States. 1 The account does not state 

 whether or not the idea of cooperation, or " associated 

 dairying ", the name by which the factory system in the 

 dairy industry was first known, spread in the community. 



In Ohio in 1849 a number of cheese establishments pur- 

 chased the unsalted curd from the fanners. " In 1850 

 . . . Geo. Hezlep, of Gustavus, Trumbull County, was 

 purchasing the curd from the milk of 1000 cows, paying 

 from 2>Ya to 3Y cents per pound for it and making from 

 100 to 120 cheeses daily." 2 These enterprises were un- 

 successful. 



In Pennsylvania 3 the first cheese factory began work in 

 1849 at Mosiertown under the direction of Messrs. Clark 

 and Stebbins. In this case the Ohio plan of buying the 

 curd instead of the milk from the farms was followed. A 

 second factory was built in 185 1 and remained " in opera- 

 tion for three years, when this system of factory cheese- 



1 Vide, the Report of the Wisconsin Dairymen's Association for 1878, 

 pp. 96-7. 



2 Report of the Vermont Dairy Association for 1872, p. 41. 



s Annual Report of Transactions of the Pennsylvania State Dairy- 

 men's Association for 1876, pp. 311-14. 



