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Milk and its products have been known and used from time immemorial. In the Bible milk and milk foods are mentioned in some thirty places. In Gen. 18:8 we read: “... and he (Abraham’s servant) took butter and milk and set it before them ...”; 1 Sam. 17:28: “And Jesse said unto David, his son: ... bring these ten cheeses unto the captain of their thousand and look how thy brethren fare....”; Prov. 30:33: “For the churning of milk bringeth forth butter,” etc.

Though in some of these passages butter is mentioned it is hardly probably that this product was really made or used at the time under the climatic conditions in Palestine. More likely it was various kinds of curd and cheese which the translator called butter. At any rate, the Hebrews of that far-off day coveted milk and its products among their most valued foods. From Egyptian, Greek and Roman history it appears that knowledge of cheese goes back to the most ancient times and that it was made from the milk of sheep, goats, cows, asses, mares, in fact from all domestic animals; in the far North, Lapps and Eskimos still make it from the milk of the reindeer, the Arabs use camel’s milk, Llama cheese is famous in the Cordilleras and Zebu cheese in Ceylon and India.

Even in ancient times the great food value of dairy products was recognized. Plinius tells of Zoroaster that for twenty years he lived exclusively on cheese, and Plutarch calls cheese one of the most nourishing of foods.

As time went by, the cow excelled all other domestic animals in capacity for the production of milk and by constant use through centuries for the one special purpose,—by care in feeding, breeding and selection,—special breeds of cattle were developed which gave milk in extraordinarily large quantities.

From Maelkeritidende, Copenhagen

Thomas R. Segelcke, father of scientific dairying in Denmark

L. B. Arnold, noted dairy expert and writer, of Herkimer County, N.Y.

In the cold climate of the northern countries where butter will keep for a long time it has been made for centuries. The illustration above is from a mural painting in an old church in Finland. Evidently at the time when that was built the devil already played havoc with the churn and even up to the days of our grand-fathers his Satanic Majesty was often accused of preventing the butter from “coming.”

Not until the middle of the nineteenth century did dairying take its place among the important industries of the world and science begin to be applied in its development. Between 1860 and 1870 Thomas R. Segelcke, the “Father of Scientific Dairying” in Denmark, introduced the thermometer in churning instead of the rule of thumb and started the keeping of records in the manufacture of butter. N. J. Fjord started a series of experiments in the creameries, continued through the next decades, and which became models for similar work throughout the world, covering pasteurization, ice houses and cold storage, comparison between various systems for raising the cream, separators, feeding rations, etc., and Denmark developed its agriculture and dairy industry to an enviable position. About the same time Dr. Schatzman applied scientific methods in cheese making in Switzerland and Jesse Williams started the first American cheese factory near Rome, N.Y., while L. B. Arnold, X. A. Willard, Harris Lewis, Harry Burrell and many other progressive dairymen made Herkimer County cheese famous.

From New York, dairy farming spread rapidly westward through Ohio to Michigan and Northern Illinois, where butter making was developed around Elgin, and to Wisconsin, where Governor Hoard preached the gospel of progress, Babcock invented and gave to the world the famous test that bears his name and Russell made a specialty of dairy bacteriology.

J. H. Monrad, the “Pen and Ink” buttermaker of New York Produce Review

Governor W. D. Hoard, of Wisconsin, promotor of progressive methods of dairying

J. A. Ruddick, Dairy Commissioner of Canada

J. H. Monrad, Assistant Dairy Commissioner of Illinois, student, writer and lecturer on dairy subjects, collected and indexed one of the most complete and valuable libraries of dairy literature found anywhere, which after his death in 1915 was taken over and installed in special rooms by Chr. Hansen’s Laboratorium in Copenhagen, where a librarian is keeping it up to date and it is open to the public.

In Canada, Dairy Commissioners Jas. W. Robertson and J. A. Ruddick, D. M. McPherson, the “Cheese King,” and others contributed to an enormous development of the manufacture of high-class cheese, and in New Zealand and Australia similar progress was made.

Business and science have vied with each other in increasing the output of dairy products and improving their quality. In the table below, showing estimates for 1917, some interesting figures are given of the amount of milk produced in the United States and the uses to which it is applied.^[1]

Uses to which milk is put (calculations based on estimates)

Item	Lbs. of Milk	Per Cent
Product of 22,768,000 cows at 3,716 lbs. per an.	84,611,350,000	──
Disposition of milk product:	─────
1,650,000,000 lbs. of butter (at 21 lbs. milk)	34,663,850,000	41.0
420,000,000 lbs. of cheese (at 10 lbs. milk)	4,200,000,000	5.0
975,000,000 lbs. of condensed milk (at 2½ lbs. milk)	2,437,500,000	2.9
210,000,000 gals. of ice cream (weighing 6 lbs. to the gallon, 10% fat)	3,150,000,000	3.7
100,000,000 persons; 45% at 0.7 lb. a day (cities) farms with dairy cows, 30%, 1.5 lbs. per day; other farms and small towns, 25%, 1 lb. a day, approximately	36,500,000,000	43.1
17,500,000 calves, whole milk (estimated) requirement	3,660,000,000	4.3
	─────
Total	84,611,350,000	100.0

Although the table accounts for all the milk produced, it does not tell the whole story, since the preparation of a number of products results in the formation of vast quantities of by-products that are not used to the fullest advantage for human food.

New York City alone consumes 1,600,000 quarts of milk a day, but even this enormous quantity means only 0.6 pint per capita. The consuming public has been slow to realize the value of milk and its products, and too much emphasis cannot be laid upon the fact that even at the largely increased cost of all dairy products they are still some of the cheapest and the most healthful of foods, especially for growing children, and should be used in much larger quantities.

THE STORY OF MILK

THE STORY OF MILK