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16 Dairy on the Prairie
IMPROVING THE BREEDS Princeton, Illinois, to select six bulls of a "milking Fire insurance map ofCascade
strain of blood" for his farm and those of five other Cooperative Creamery Co., Iowa.56
The Babcock test meant that water could not be dairymen, at a cost of nearly $700.55 Walworth and
added to the milk without the factory discovering it; Hicks were definitely forerunners in herd improve- operatively owned. In a dairy co-op, a certain num-
creameries began paying farmers not by the pound- ment, as the real push toward this effort did not be- ber of shares at a set amount per share were sold, gen-
weight of milk, but rather, by the percentage of but- gin until the 1890 introduction of the Babcock test. erally to dairy farmers. Profits and losses were then
terfat in the milk. With milk grading—testing the split according to shareholding percentage and share-
butterfat percentage—in standard use, the farmer pro- DAIRY CO-OPERATIVES holders voted on any important decisions related to
viding the cow's milk with the most butter (i.e., had operations. A small percentage of the profits were
the highest fat percentage) received greater payment Generally, the more cream received by a single used to invest in capital improvements.
than the farmer whose cows produced abundant company, the lower the cost per pound to make the
quantities of less fatty milk. Farmers were forced to butter, due to lower shipping costs—as when filling The post-1900 co-operatives were more complex
purchase full- or carefully selected mixed-blood an entire railroad car load; lesser fuel costs to fire boil- and often organized to counterbalance perceived in-
breeds to increase milk output while simultaneously ers—as running a single boiler costs less than running equities doled out by large consolidated creameries,
increasing the "richness" of the milk produced. ones at 20 different plants; and the ability of large fac- such as poor service, marketing, and management;
tories to sell directly to retailers—thus avoiding mid- low prices paid for cream; improper butterfat testing;
A few Jones County farmers adopted cattle breed- dlemen costs. In other words, the more cream a and excessive commission charges.57 Co-ops were not
ing as a specialty during the early years of dairy in- company could receive, the lower the costs and greater simply a reaction against apparent abuses; farmers
dustrialization. C. C. Walworth of Monticello was the chance of success. The larger consolidated cream- believed that community effort would result in eco-
among their number, owning the 25th purebred Hol- eries began to purchase or drive out of business the nomic success and empowerment.
stein in the United States, born on his farm in 1870. smaller ones.
He was also the first Holstein breeder in Iowa.54 In
1880, Bowen's Prairie farmer F. M. Hicks traveled to Centralized creameries were different than consol-
idated ones. Consolidated ones, such as the Diamond
Hick's Farm. Courtesy of State Historical Society of Creamery, owned numerous creameries within one-
Iowa, Iowa City, Paul C. Juhl Collection. days haul of each other; thus, cream could be received
at the local branch creamery and hauled the same day
to the central butter making facility. Centralized
creameries were more common in Western Iowa,
where dairy farms were more scattered; these cream-
eries received a good portion of their cream from rail
shipments from outlying branch creameries.
The earliest dairy co-ops were simple organizations
formed to meet the marketing needs of dairy farmers
who had nowhere to sell their milk. Co-operative
creameries were not unusual in Iowa: the first was
formed in 1877 in Delaware County, and by 1894,
nearly 50 percent of Iowa's 807 creameries were co-
