280 RURAL NEW YORK 



on the difficulty of making butter in the hot weather 

 of summer and is coupled with the practice of sum- 

 mer dairying. Tlie development of the industry 

 reaches back to 1804 when Colonel Jared Thayer, of 

 the town of Norway, Herkimer County, made cheese 

 from the milk of a herd of twenty cows. Many de- 

 tails of manufacture and curing had to be overcome, 

 as suitable rennet, proper heating, cutting and grind- 

 ing the curd, size of cheese, the relation of butter- 

 fat to yield, and finally of factory as compared with 

 farm manufacture. 



The need for a larger and more uniform cheese 

 made it necessary to handle a larger quantity of milk 

 in one lot than the average herd provides. This 

 gave rise to cooperation among farmers to increase 

 the bulk of milk. About 1851, Jesse Williams, of 

 Oneida County, combined the milk from his sons' 

 farms with his own. This was the germ of the coop- 

 erative factory system destined to have so large a 

 rise. In 1879, New York produced 56.5 per cent 

 of all the cheese in the United States and 33 per 

 cent in 1910. 



While the bulk of the cheese is of the American 

 Cheddar type, it is surprising how many kinds of 

 cheese are made. With many of these forms the 

 ordinary person has no acquaintance since they are 

 not staple market products. The last available sum- 

 mary of these was in 1908 when nineteen different 

 kinds are reported and the production of several 

 others is indicated. In Table XIII is given a list of 

 these and the amount of each kind produced: 



