HISTORY OF KANE COUNTY.
653
Chicago market. Successful dairying requires the very best strains of milk-producing stock; yet, while breeding-cows yield the largest flow of excellent milk, it is also highly desirable to produce animals best fitted for the shambles when their brief career as milkers terminates. As a consequence the study and experiments, tending toward these results, have wrought wonderful improvements in the domestic animals of the county. The "scrub" stock of the pioneers have vanished and there are now as fine breeding herds of Durham, Hereford, Hoi-stein, Guernsey and Polled Angus cattle in Kane county as can be found anywhere else in the republic. Few of the dairymen, however, seem to favor full-bred cows, but rather to prefer a cross showing a generous strain of their favorite blood. In riding through the county, it is not difficult to note the preference of the owners of the fine herds of milk-cows grazing in the rich pastures by the wayside. Since about 1874, when Dr. Joseph Tefft introduced his famous 'Friesian-Holstein cow, "Zwaan," which startled our incipient dairymen by a daily yield of eight gallons of milk, there has been a marked increase in both the quantity and quality of the milk produced. The change in the products of the farm is now complete. To-day no wheat is raised in Kane county, nor any other cereal for market, while hundreds of car-loads of various stock foods are annually brought into the county, and the Fox River valley is known as one of the finest dairy regions of the world. The great factories of "Borden's Condensed Milk Company," located at Elgin, Carpentersville, and St. Charles, alone require an average of many tons of milk daily, in the preparation of their various brands of excellent lacteal foods. This company has never failed to make monthly cash payment in full to its patrons; and, since its organization in 1863, it has disbursed many millions of dollars to the farmers of Kane County.
Early in the '60s many of our dairymen engaged in the manufacture of cheese and, for ten or fifteen years, produced much more cheese than butter for the general trade. The factory-men soon discovered, however, that a large portion of their best product was repacked at Chicago-their sole market-and put into packages labeled "Orange County Butter" and "New York Full Cream Cheese," and, under these false brands, was quoted in the Chicago papers and sold on its markets at higher prices than was demanded for Western butter and cheese.
They long and earnestly protested to both publishers and dealers against the unjust deception, but in vain, and the persistence of these misrepresentations brought about the organization of the Elgin Dairy Board of Trade in 1872. Chicago dealers ridiculed and ignored the project, and the Southern and Eastern markets were appealed to. Their representatives, especially from St. Louis and New Orleans, at once appeared at its meetings and readily purchased its offerings, thus assuring its success. The extraordinarily rapid expansion of its operations, as producers and purveyors of these indispensable food supplies, here met on fair and honest terms, has been a marvel of surprise to its most sanguine friends. Its vast volume of steadily increasing trade is shown in the subjoined table compiled by its Secretary and published in the Elgin Dairy Report:
STATISTICS OP THE ELGIN DAIRY BOARD OF TRADE-Total production for thirty-one years (1872 to 1902, inclusive): Butter, 587,989,045 pounds; cheese, 193,631,354 pounds. Total number pounds of both, 781,620,399; value, $147,361,251.
The following figures indicate the average price of butter per pound (in cents) on the Elgin Board of Trade for the last fourteen years, viz.: 1889, 22 3-4; 1890, 22 3-8; 1S91, 25; 1892, 25 1-4; 1893, 25 7-8; 1894, 22; 1895, 20 6-10;
1896, 17 8-10; 1897, 18 4-10; 1898, 18 8-10; 1899,
20 6-10; 1900, 21 8-10; 1901, 21 1-8; 1902, 24 1-8.
The sales on the Board, during last six years, have aggregated as follows:
Pounds. Value.
1897, Butter 44,224,022 $9,137,219
Total
Cheese 9,520,668 618,834
9,756,053
1898, Butter 42,579,139 $8,004,878
Cheese 6,841,715 496,024
Total
1899, Butter 43,610,507 $9,027,374
Cheese 6,104,725 518,901
Total $ 9,546,275
1900, Butter 44,061,368 $9,638,424
Cheese 4,399,964 307,997
Total $ 9,946,421
