ILLINOIS STATE DAIRYMEN’S ASSOCIATION. 
11 
During all this time up to 1854, but little attention had been paid to the 
dairy or its products. Butter making was one of the household duties of 
themanner’s family, to supply their own wants, and the excess was exchanged 
at the store for what was termed store pay. Having generally but very few 
conveniences for properly caring for the milk, and as the storekeeper paid a 
uniform price for butter regardless of quality, there was but little induce¬ 
ment held out to the butter maker to provide better accommodations for the 
daily 01 take greater pains to make a superior article. 
lliis state of things brought to the country store butter of every hue and 
variety ; was packed by the country merchant and shipped East and sold as 
Western butter. 
Thus the character of the Western dairy products was established—the 
name W estern indicating a very inferior grade in the Eastern markets—and 
it has taken much of patience and perseverance on the part of the Illinois 
dairymen to remove the impression from the minds of Eastern dealers that 
Illinois could not produce butter and cheese equal to that of the Eastern 
-States. 
. ! n 'Si the prospects of the farmers of Northern Illinois was gloomy 
indeed. Grain raising was unprofitable, and farmers asked each other the 
question, What shall we do ? Many endeavored to solve the problem bv 
selling out and going farther West, realizing for their farms hardly the cost 
of their improvements. About this time P. II. Smith, occupying the farm 
then and still owned by Dr. Joseph Tefft, two miles east of Elgin’ conceived 
the idea of shipping milk to Chicago. lie bought a few cows and 
sending milk to the old City Hotel. This was the first attempt at exclusive 
airy farming in Illinois. Chicago had been shocked by an expose in the 
newspapers of the manner in which the city was furnished with milk_termed 
swill-milk-produced from cows fed and kept in the distilleries and breweries 
and eageily accepted the sweet, wholesome milk from the Eox River Valiev 
Mi. Smith added rapidly to his dairy, but the demand exceeded his ability to 
supply; so his neighbors, seeing the condition of things, began shipping milk 
m the same way, and for the next ten years farm after farm was stocked with 
cows until the supply exceeded the demand and prices began to recede to so 
low a point that it became apparent that something had to be done or th« 
dairy business would also become unprofitable, and the question was. what 
can be done with the excess of milk ? It seemed useless to make it up into 
butter or cheese. The miserable reputation Western dairy products had 
earned in the East and even at home, precluded any idea of profit from that 
source. But despite this unfavorable prospect, there were a few men who 
believed that Illinois could produce as good an article of butter and cheese as 
any of the most favored of the Eastern States, and they determined to make 
me trial. 
Hi 1863, C. W. Gould and I. H. Wanzer put up each a small factory in the 
vicinity of Elgin, and succeeded so well that in the next four years minv 
more factories were started. These early cheese-makers spared no pains and 
