In one important detail dairy labour is the same as a century ago. Cows still have to be milked by hand. Although many attempts have been made, and patent after patent has been issued, no mechanical contrivance has yet proved a practical success as a substitute for the human hand in milking. Consequently, twice (or thrice) daily every day in the year, the dairy cows must be milked by manual labour. This is one of the main items of labour in dairying, and is a delicate and important duty. Assuming 10 cows per hour to a milker, which implies quick work, it requires the continuous service of an army of 300,000 men, working 10 or 12 hours a day throughout the year, to milk the cows kept in the United States.
The business of producing milk for urban consumption, with the accompanying agencies for transportation and distribution, has grown to immense proportions. In many places the milk trade is regulated and supervised by excellent municipal ordinances, which have done much to prevent adulteration and to improve the average quality of the supply. Quite as much is, however, being done by private enterprise through large milk companies, well organized and equipped, and establishments which make a speciality of serving milk and cream of fixed quality and exceptional purity. Such efforts to furnish "certified" and "guaranteed" milk, together with general competition for the best class of trade, are doing more to raise the standard of quality and improve the service than all the legal measures. The buildings and equipment of some of these modern dairies are beyond precedent. This branch of dairying is advancing fast, upon the safe basis of care, cleanliness and better sanitary conditions.
Cheese-making has been transferred bodily from the domain of domestic arts to that of manufactures. In the middle of the 19th century about 100,000,000 lb. of cheese was made yearly in the United States, and all of it in farm dairies. At the beginning of the 20th century the annual production was about 300,000,000 lb., and 96 or 97% of this was made in factories. Of these there are nearly 3000, but they vary greatly in capacity, and some are very small. New York and Wisconsin possess a thousand each, but the former state makes nearly twice as much cheese as the latter, whilst the two together produce three-fourths of the entire output of the country. A change is taking place in the direction of bringing a number of factories previously independent into a "combination" or under the same management. This tends to improve the quality and secure greater uniformity in the product, and often reduces cost of manufacture. More than nine-tenths of all the cheese made is of the familiar standard type, copied after the English Cheddar, but new kinds and imitations of foreign varieties are increasing. The annual export of cheese from the United States ranges between 30,000,000 and 50,000,000 lb. The consumption _per capita_ does not exceed 3½ lb. per annum, which is much less than in most European countries.