American Agriculturist 
THE FARM PAPER THAT PRINTS THE FARM NEWS 
“Agriculture is the Most Healthful, Most Useful and Most Noble Employment of Man”— Washington 
Reg. U. S. Pat. Off. Established 1842 
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Volume 112 For the Week Ending October 13, 1923 Number 15 
Dairying As They Did It in Father’s Time 
“The Old Order Changeth, Giving Place to New" But — 
J UST this week when in our most cen¬ 
tral New York State city once famous 
for its salt, there is being held what is 
without doubt the greatest exposition 
of dairying in all its branches that the world 
has even seen, it may be well to remember 
for a little the beginnings of this great in¬ 
dustry when it was still a farm and house¬ 
hold art. 
Lord Macaulay, in the opening sentence of 
his monumental History of England, lays a 
broad foundation for his task: “I purpose 
to write the history of England 
from the accession of King 
James, the Second, down to a 
period within the memory of men 
still living.” Now I do not pur¬ 
pose to write the history of dairy¬ 
ing, but only to set down a few 
outstanding events in its evolu¬ 
tion, more especially as developed 
in New York State. 
Our calling is as old as the race 
—certainly as old as any bit of 
recorded history. In the very 
beautiful pastoral story told in 
the first half of the eighteenth 
chapter of Genesis, Farmer Abra¬ 
ham entertained three distinguished guests 
and set before them “a calf, tender and 
good,” and also milk and butter. 
The cow was of European origin, but she 
migrated to America along with the earliest 
colonists. In Longfellow's poem, “The Court¬ 
ship of Miles Standish,” the Pilgrim Fathers 
are made the possessors of a “milk-white 
bull,” but doubtless this is poetic license 
rather than sober historical fact. Probably 
the very first place in America where dairy¬ 
ing was highly developed was in Orange 
County, N. Y. For more than a century it 
has been a wonderful cowland. Long ago the 
old Orange County Bank printed its bank¬ 
notes in yellow to sig¬ 
nify that butter was 
the source of the 
wealth and prosperity 
of the county. In this 
county, too, was the 
cradle of the great 
milk shipping indus¬ 
try. About 1847 or 
1848, the first milk to 
ever reach New York 
by rail came in from 
the vicinity of War¬ 
wick, Orange County, 
over the then newly 
constructed Erie Rail¬ 
road. Tradition has it 
that no other contain¬ 
ers being available, 
shipment was made in 
oak churns, and if the 
supply was insufficient 
there were surely 
plenty of country 
coopers who could 
build one complete on 
a few hours’ notice. 1 
have been unable to 
By JARED VAN WAGENEN, JR. 
obtain even a hint as to the price paid pro¬ 
ducers, but feel sure that they were not an¬ 
noyed by either stable inspectors or bacterial 
counts. I have read the old journals with 
the butter market reports for those years. 
There were just two classes of butter, 
“Orange County” and “Western Dairy.” The 
former meant butter produced in southeast¬ 
ern New York and the latter, which was 
much lower in price, was from farther afield 
and was probably shipped in over the old 
Erie Canal. 
Both Orange and Delaware counties had a 
long and, in some, ways, rather palmy history 
of butter production. I remember that in 
September of 1891, my father and mother 
and I took a drive mainly through Delaware 
and Otsego counties for the purpose of study¬ 
ing their dairy methods. We drove some 130 
miles in five days behind a very leisurely 
team of farm horses. Delaware County has 
made great changes since then. Of course 
the hills were there, as well as the rows of 
beautiful maple trees that shade so many 
Delaware County roads, but the old, low un¬ 
painted barn, with mountainous piles of ma¬ 
nure under the eaves, was much in evidence* 
To-day Delaware County is wonderfully sup^ 
plied with great modern barns and fine 
stables often lighted with electricity—mute 
evidence that despite much grumbling dairy¬ 
ing makes something more than a bare living 
for the man who follows it with intelligence 
and enthusiasm. I especially remember that 
cottonseed meal was at that time a new, 
strange feed in our locality, but Delaware 
County was already using it in large amounts 
and the v yellow bags on the farm 
wagons were a constant source of 
interest to us. 
This is not really ancient his¬ 
tory—only 32 years ago—but the 
creamery at Stamford operated 
an enormous dash-churn, the 
power being furnished by a steam 
engine through a contrivance very 
much like the walking beam on an 
old-time Hudson River steamboat. 
Most farmers made their own but¬ 
ter in deep, cool, whitewashed cel¬ 
lars and packed it in firkm-casks 
of native oak, which were filled 
full and then headed up and stood 
in long rows against the cellar walls. These 
were the famous “Delaware long dairies” of 
the New York butter trade. In autumn these 
were purchased and the buyers sawed them 
through the middle, thus making two tubs 
and exposing a fresh surface for inspection 
and sampling. Judged by the present stand¬ 
ard for “92 score” and “creamery extras,” I 
fear it would be considered pretty low grade 
stuff, but it was the very best of its time. 
Gone are the “long dairies,” even from 
Bovina. Gone, too, the ancient art of the 
Scotch housewives of Delaware, but the great 
plants of the Sheffields and others, with their 
spotlessness, their laboratories, their steam 
sterilizers, and pas¬ 
teurizers, and auto¬ 
matic bottlers are 
handling more milk 
and bringing to the 
farmers more revenue 
than was ev,er dreamed 
of in the old days. But 
I—I would like to re¬ 
vive at least the mem¬ 
ory of farm women 
making butter in 
shadowy, whitewashed 
cellars, but I can 
never see them again 
unless I shut my eyes. 
At that date most but¬ 
ter was made either 
from shallow pans or 
deep settings, but 
J ohn McDonald, at 
Elk Creek, near Delhi, 
ran a separator from 1 
a water wheel, the 
power being carried 
on a long wire cable 
which served as a belt, 
(Continued on page 254) 
Don’t Miss This ! 
O NE of the finest pieces of writing that has appeared in any farm 
paper is Mr. Van Wagenen’s article on this page. We asked him 
to write something special on dairying and something special it is. It 
is a little story of the men and women of the past generation who 
laid the foundation of the greatest farm business in the world—the 
production of dairy products for millions of modern consumers.— 
The Editors. 
