The shift away from subsistence farming began when farm families started using steam-powered tractors and other farm machinery. By the 1890s the availability of planting, cultivating, and harvesting machinery challenged Stearns County farmers to adjust their use of land and labor to increase production and ease family drudgery.
Farmers were encouraged to turn pasture and fodder acreage into cropland, so that more feed could be raised for cattle. With more and better feed, dairy cows did not dry up and could be kept producing through the winter, increasing profits. Farmers began to increase their herds. Larger herds, however, produced more milk than most farm families could use themselves or sell locally. Improved methods of storage became a never-ending concern as farmers looked for commercial markets for their products.
In the 1800s, farmers began winter dairying because new technology enabled them to place more land under cultivation and raise enough feed to sustain milking cattle over winter. Cattle like these on the Hansen family farm , Rockville, grew a thicker coat of hair to protect them during the cold Minnesota winters.
Creameries
Creameries answered that need. Creameries were private or cooperatively owned businesses that purchased cream from farmers, manufactured it into butter, then sold it to outside markets. As more Stearns County dairy farmers "turned to dairying," more creameries entered the business.
Certainly this change did not occur quickly, nor at the same time or at the same rate throughout the county. In some areas farmers did not wish to sell their milk. The number of cows producing milk on individual farms grew slowly, and many did not have enough cows producing enough milk to sell commercially. Some farmers kept their milk on the farm too long, delivering sour milk and receiving poor prices. Price disputes between farmer and creamery were common. Many farm women were reluctant to let go of butter making as a home industry, and not a few churned butter for home use long after creameries were established.
By 1887 three privately owned creameries operated in Stearns County-two in Sauk Centre and one in St. Cloud. In 1894 those three no longer existed, but there were four others-one each in Richmond, Avon, Melrose, and Sauk Centre. Two years later there were fourteen. By 1913 seventeen cooperatives, fourteen independents, and two centralizers (large corporate butter factories) thirty-three in all-were in operation.
Farming, Minnesota, creamery day in about 1910. Butter maker John Michaels (standing in buckboard at right), who lived on the top floor of the creamery with his family, welcomed patrons and their families to the creamery.
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