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THE BUREAU OF DAIRY INDUSTRY

ITS HISTORY, ACTIVITIES, AND

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ORGANIZATION

CHAPTER I

HISTORY

The Bureau of Dairy Industry is that unit of the Department of Agriculture through which the national government investigates the production of milk and the various substances made therefrom, as well as the distribution, utilization, and marketing of the same; and through which it endeavors to improve the various processes upon which these important agricultural and commercial activities are based. Besides being the youngest bureau in the Department of Agriculture it has the distinction of being one of the three bureaus in that Department that have been created by direct act of Congress. It began to function July 1, 1924, after the act of May 29, 1924 (43 Stat. L., 243), had directed the establishment of a "Bureau of Dairying" for "the investigation of the dairy industry, and the dissemination of information for the promotion of the dairy industry." The designation used in the organic act was changed to Bureau of Dairy Industry beginning July 1, 1926, in accordance with the act of May 11, 1926 (4 Stat. L., 499, 507)." The change was made at the request of the Chief, who objected to the original name as not being sufficiently inclusive.

Dairy Division. The act directing the establishment of the Bureau authorized the Secretary of Agriculture " to transfer to the Bureau of Dairying such activities of the Department of Agriculture as he may designate, which relate principally to the dairy industry";

'The other two are the Weather Bureau and the Bureau of Animal Industry.

'The act making appropriation for the Department of Agriculture for the fiscal year 1927.

language clearly indicative of the existence of work within the department, of a nature akin to the work the new Bureau was designed to further. It may be said, indeed, that the setting-up of the new Bureau marked not so much a beginning as a continuation, or better, perhaps, an enlargement.

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For nearly thirty years prior to that time the government of the United States, through its Department of Agriculture, had been systematically taking note of the industry based upon milk and the products thereof as an everyday part of the work of acquiring and diffusing "useful information on subjects connected with agriculture in the most general and comprehensive sense of that word.” 3 Ever since 1895 there had existed in the Bureau of Animal Industry of that department, the Dairy Division, the original purpose of the organization of which was the securing of information of value to the dairymen relating to "the condition of the industry, statistics of production and trade, markets, and improvement in the manner of producing and handling dairy products," as well as the establishment of "intimate relations with the dairy organization of the country." "Authorization for the creation of this Division was contained in the Agricultural appropriation act of March 2, 1895 (28 Stat. L., 727), a slight change in the customary appropriation act phraseology of the time making provision for the collection by the Secretary of Agriculture of "information concerning dairy products." This authorizing language was written into that portion of the act dealing with the Bureau of Animal Industry, and was doubtless so written because of the urging by the Chief of that Bureau, in his annual report for the preceding year (1894), that a dairy division be established for the purpose of collecting and distributing information and thereby educating dairymen throughout the country regarding the needs, opportunities, shortcomings, etc., of their calling.

The result of this recommendation and this authorization was the establishment, July 1, 1895, of the Dairy Division in the Bureau of Animal Industry with a chief, an assistant, and two clerks; and with the announcement that the work of the new Division for some time to come would consist of nothing but the collection and

* See the organic act of the Department of Agriculture of May 15, 1862, (12 Stat. L., 387).

Chief of Bureau of Animal Industry, Annual Report, 1895, pp. 100, 101,

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dissemination of information relative to dairying in the United States and throughout the world. Original scientific research was hung up as a mark to be shot at ultimately, but it was declared that proper foundations would have to be laid out of the experience and observation to be collected before research could be profitably undertaken.

It was in this way, and at this time, that governmental work in connection with dairying was first established in the United States on an organized and continuing basis. Such work as had been done, therefore, had consisted of the occasional publication of dairying articles in the reports and bulletins issued by the Department. These were sometimes instructional, dealing with such things as the farm making of butter or cheese, or the care of milch cows; sometimes they were merely statistical. Thus, in the report for 1850, there was published an article on Dairy husbandry." "The manufacture of cheese as a staple article of export" appeared in the report for 1863 The monthly Agricultural Report for June-July, 1865, contained "How the cheddar cheese is made." Others of these early articles selected at random are "Account of the Vermont Dairymen's Association," "The Swartz system of butter making in Sweden," and "The progress of American dairying."

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Early Developments in the Industry. Even a casual examination of this pre-organization dairying literature is sufficient to convince the reader that it reflected the progress of a great and growing industry, even as the growth of that industry reflected the progress of America. Civilization may follow the flag. Dairying in America has certainly followed civilization. It might not be too far-fetched, indeed, to say that in certain respects it has led it.

* That is to say federal governmental work. The dairy organization idea had got to the states somewhat earlier. Massachusetts established a dairy bureau in 1891. New York provided for a dairy commissioner in 1894. Commissioner of Patents, Annual Report: Agriculture, 1850, p. 167. Commissioner of Agriculture. Annual Report, 1863, p. 381.

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All these early publications have been listed in a number of indexes published by the Department. They may be found, for example, in Bulletin No. 5 of the Division of Publications under "dairying," 66 butter," ""milk,"

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cheese," and related headings. The title of this bulletin is "Index to Literature Relating to Animal Industry in the Publications of the Department of Agriculture 1837 to 1898."

Cows began to be milked in Virginia and Massachusetts within a very few years after the establishment of those colonies. Their number increased as settlement increased and as other colonies were founded, and within a comparatively short time the initial form of dairying—the getting of milk and the making of butter and cheese for home consumption only-developed into the form that produces and peddles a surplus. Towns grew, with populations that became progressively less cow-keeping. Shipping that had to be victualled increased in the ports. The law of supply and demand did the rest. By the close of the Revolution dairying was an important American industry that was constantly growing in importance-fetching in millions to swell the national wealth and filling country graveyards with the worn-out wives of farmers. Which is to say that it was an industry that was just as thriving and just as crude as the day in which it first existed.

From then on, the story is simply one of growth in volume and improvement in method in response to economic demand. Transportation developed. The canal made it possible for cheese and butter to be more largely and more widely distributed. A bit later and all this was accentuated by the railroad, which likewise tremendously lengthened the possible distance between milk source and milk consumer. "The milk train " became an American institution as well as a vivid connotation of the ultimate ungodly hour of up-betimesism.

It was in the forties of the last century that the first milk train ran. In the following decade came two other milk developments of prime importance. One of these was the real beginning of the making and distribution of condensed and evaporated milks. The other was the first stirring toward the legal regulation of the milk supplies of cities and towns.

The idea of the condensing of milk had been in men's mind since the beginning of the century, and had been considerably experimented with, but it was not till the fifties that it practically developed. The possibilities it opened up in enlarged utilization and distribution need not be enlarged upon.

'That is to say, ran successfully. The experiment was first tried in 1838, over the old Boston and Worcester Railroad into Boston, but, not proving successful, it was given up.

It has not been so very many years ago since mention of the term "milk man" automatically and instantaneously made the citydwelling American think of a pump, a hydrant, or some other contraption from which water might be procured. And the sad part of it is that, in the vernacular of a slightly bygone day, it was no joke, even though the comic publications of the day wrung well-nigh as many wheezes out of it as they did out of the ancient pleasantry about mothers-in-law.

It is probable that every form of human endeavor having to do with the wide distribution of essential products has to live through and live down what may be described as the shoe-peg oats period. There is almost certain to be a time in the youth of such an industry when, regulations for the restraint of rascality being insufficient or non-existent, and the rewards of rascality being considerable, rascality will run a rampart course of scamping, adulteration, and sharp practice in callous disregard of every principle of fair-dealing and even of common decency. In no phase of American development has this been more vividly exemplified than in the growth of the business of American municipal milk supply. Americans not yet elderly can recall rather sickening milk scandals in more than one American city; and particularly can they recall how this condition was given reflection in contemporary fiction-not mere sob-sister outpourings, which were frequently as contemptible and dishonest in ultimate motive as the abuse at which they railed, but sounder stuff. The editor of "The Federalist," it will be recalled, in his fine novel, "The Honorable Peter Stirling," made his hero's "first case deal with the activities of a so-called dairy in New York City that peddled as milk the terrible stuff obtained from a lot of diseased cows kept shut up in an indescribably noisome barn and fed on the refuse from breweries.

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As has been said, it was not until the fifties that any definite action was taken looking toward the protection of the consuming public from such conditions. Massachusetts enacted legislation in 1856 aimed at the prevention of the adulteration or watering " of milk. The law not proving effective, a new law was passed in 1859 making provision for milk inspectors in cities and towns. Under this law the first municipal milk inspector in America began work on August 10, 1859. The law was strengthened in 1864 to the extent of forbidding the feeding of cows with distillery refuse,

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