134 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. 



dairying. It is essentially a mountain industry ; mountain 

 pastures, mountain cattle and a comparatively scattered 

 mountain population contribute to its characteristics. The 

 cattle of the country have been for centuries a large, coarse, 

 red-and-white variety, known by the name of Montbeliarde ; 

 this is a regional type, if not a breed, resembling its neigh- 

 bor the Simmenthal breed of Switzerland. 



The most notable feature of the cheese making of the 

 French Jura region is that it has been carried on from a 

 very early period under a well-defined local system of co- 

 operation among the milk producers and cheese makers. It 

 has been claimed and believed that the plan of associated 

 dairying originated in the United States near the middle of 

 the nineteenth century, and was first developed in the form 

 of the co-operative cheese factory. Collectively, the cheese 

 factories and butter factories or creameries of this coun- 

 try have been designated as "the American system." But 

 whatever honor or credit attaches to the origin of this idea 

 and practice of co-operation in dairying, must be surrendered 

 to eastern France. The plan has been known and followed 

 continuously in this mountain region between France and 

 Switzerland for several centuries. It undoubtedly originated 

 in that region, but how long ago no one knows. There 

 exists a historical record of co-operative cheese making in 

 the thirteenth century, in the present department of Doubs, 

 and no document of equal age is known which refers to a 

 like industry in any other country. In the middle of the 

 fourteenth century little associations for cheese making were 

 numerous and active in Upper Jura. In the seventeenth 

 century their number and work were so important in the 

 Franche-Comte as to be the subject of special laws. These 

 associations became well organized and quite numerous two 

 hundred years ago. Examples of the articles of association 

 and of contracts between the society and its several mem- 

 bers, as to contributions or sales of milk, and also as to 

 cheese sales, are still preserved, which are two hundred 

 years old or more. It is hardly expedient to further follow 

 here the history of these little factories, or their present or- 

 ganization and operations, interesting as they are. 



