Supplying the Demand
Over two hundred cheese-makers regularly attended the Little Falls cheese market on Ann St. Most
of the cheese factories were located in Herkimer County north of the Mohawk River. Competition
was brisk, so the highest prices were often paid. The cheese business also extended far beyond the production of cheese. A number of local companies got their start by supplying the farmers and the
factories with all the supplies necessary for dairying and cheese production.
The Business Behind the Business
On Albany Street, the Burrell & Whitman factory (forerunner of
Feldmeier Corporation) produced or sold almost everything needed for
making cheese. They built vats to hold fresh milk, boilers to heat it, cheesecloth for draining the curds, wooden hoops to shape the cheese, curd knives, cheese presses, and even the wooden boxes used for shipping. The company also handled sales for Hansen's commercial Rennet Extract, manufactured locally after 1881.David H. Burrell and his brother Edward also actively promoted modern farming practices to improve dairying. Their catalogs included chapters on dairy practices, good breeding, and suitable barns. They introduced silos to provide year-round feed for steady milk production. The company's work to develop pasteurization methods, cream separator, and other dairy equipment helped farmers to standardize and improve the high quality of their dairy products.
The End of the Cheese EraIn the 1920s, farm roads throughout Herkimer County were paved. Newly invented milk trucks (made by Cherry-Burrell in Little Falls) and refrigerated railroad cars could now carry fresh milk from local farms directly to expanding metropolitan markets in the Northeast where it sold at higher profits than cheese.
Gradually local farmers shifted all of their production to fresh milk. Today Herkimer County dairy farmers are among the top ten milk-producing counties for the New York City - New Jersey Milkshed
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