The dairy county

1909 — 2022

For two generations the county's second industry was milk: Quinn's survey states the standing without qualification: "This county ranks among the first in the State in the number of milch cows and the production of milk. In 1909, the average number of cows milked was 8,212. The total value of dairy products for this same year was $559,462" — dairying, with truck farming, "becoming of great importance" beside the county's general farming. The cities at the county's center drank the milk, and the farm economy organized around the daily haul. The 1954 census catches the dairy order at its height and at its turn. Milk cows numbered 8,567 on 979 farms at the fall count (9,487 on 1,407 farms in 1950); 6,649 cows were milked on the day before enumeration, producing 19,416 gallons that day. What changed inside the five years is the form of the sale: in 1949, 849 farms sold whole milk — 56,690,382 pounds of it, for $1,943,692 — and 199 farms still sold cream, 121,363 pounds of butterfat; by 1954 the whole-milk sellers were 588 farms selling 54,537,052 pounds for $1,827,230, and the cream sellers had collapsed to 74 farms and 64,459 pounds of butterfat. The cream separator's county was becoming the bulk-tank county. Milking machines stood on 501 farms in 1954 — against 512 in 1950, a plateau that says the machine arrived before the herds began to go. They went slowly, then all at once in the counting: the 2017 census found 1,458 milk cows on 20 farms. Milk still sells from this county — $8,490,000 of milk from cows in 2022, the second livestock line after hogs — but from a handful of herds where a thousand farms once set out cans.

Sources:

1. E. J. Quinn, "Soil Survey of LaPorte, St. Joseph, and Bartholomew Counties" (1916) — the county among the first in the state in milch cows and milk production; 8,212 cows milked on average in 1909; dairy products valued at $559,462.
2. U.S. Bureau of the Census, 1954 Census of Agriculture, Vol. I, Part 4 (Indiana), County Table 7, Part 1 — milk cows (979 farms, 8,567 head in 1954; 1,407 farms, 9,487 in 1950), whole milk sold (pounds and dollars, 1954 and 1949), cream sold (farms and pounds of butterfat), cows milked and milk produced on the day preceding enumeration.
3. U.S. Bureau of the Census, 1954 Census of Agriculture, Vol. I, Part 4 (Indiana), County Table 5 — milking machines on 501 farms in 1954, 512 in 1950.
4. USDA, NASS, 2017 Census of Agriculture, County Table 1 — milk cows 1,458 on 20 farms.
5. USDA, NASS, 2022 Census of Agriculture County Profile: St. Joseph County, Indiana — milk from cows sold for $8,490,000.