Cheese industry is not yet of sufficient magnitude to exert any
marked influence on the European markets, but as the dairy industry
is constantly expanding here, and the State’s product must stand on
its own merits, it behooves manufacturers to avoid the pit that their
brothers of the Empire State have inadvertently stumbled into. We
consume a large amount of cheese here at home, and why are not our
stomachs as worthy to be catered to as are the digestive receptacles
of our English cousins across the pond? Yet there is no alarm in
cheese circles as to deteriorated quality until British buyers find
something that suits them better and for which they are willing to
pay more. Truly cheese-eating New Yorkers are a very patient people.
We have before us the file of a leading American cheese report of
1868—twenty years ago. It says: “We are behind the Canadians as
regards firmness, but ahead of them in point of flavor. The same
relation exists between American and Swedish cheese; also, between
American and English cheese, and other European makes, with the
exception of a few of the best English brands, which are equal if
not superior to our finest grades, as regards flavor, and superior
in fineness and firmness of texture.” This was America’s prestige
a score of years ago. Why has it not been sustained? The cause is
clear to the most obdurate. Producers supposed their cheese supreme
in the English markets and have been abusing an established trade
reputation with impunity. Their folly is now apparent, and the
question naturally arises, Will they play the role of the prodigal
son and return to a path of trade rectitude? That implies that the
banns that unite the creamery and the cheese factory be irrevocably
severed—send the skimmer higher than Gilroy’s kite, as it were.
The American people can appreciate good cheese just as well as the
English. We want good butter, too, but not at the cost of the cheese
quality. That is not necessary, and a few years ago we did not deem
it so, either. Why should there be a tendency in that direction
now? We are now better equipped in every department to send out
better cheese than we did in 1868, yet notice the difference in the
two reports quoted. We are better equipped, because we have more
scientific appliances for handling milk. Our milk is better, because
the pastures are improved, and a finer grade of stock feeds upon
them. Makers of to-day who rely on the accumulated cheese wisdom
handed down through two decades of experience should be rich enough
in knowledge to at least not retrograde from the standard of 1868.
Let us for one moment lay reform in the tariff, and reform in the
civil service on the table and talk, think and act about reform in
cheese. Michigan always takes a front seat when reformation of any
kind is agitated. We are satisfied she will not take a back seat
now. There has probably not been such a tendency in this State as in
other localities to rob milk at both ends and on the sides before
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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