At a New Year’s eve dance a few decades ago, Dalton Hodgins and I were having a chat about all the changes in dairying over the years. We both came to the conclusion that a story about the history of dairying should be written before everyone forgot the past.
At that time, Dalton had accepted a job as a classifier of Holstein cattle in Canada and retired from milking cows. He and his wife Joy had also begun a collection of early dairy artifacts, like old milking machines, cream separators, pictures commemorating early dairying and the Shawville Fair. Dalton went on to be the chief classifier for Holstein Canada and both classified and judged fairs not only in Canada but in other countries like Italy and Bolivia. Before the party was over, we had concluded that Dalton was the most qualified to write the history.
Not many years after that, Dalton became ill with an all too persistent illness and passed away at an early age before having time to write the history of dairy in our county. Although not as qualified as Dalton was, I feel obligated to write a few notes about our dairying past before everyone forgets.
By the early 1800s, our county was changing from just a place to harvest pine timber and trade furs to a county where settlers were beginning to turn some of those areas already cleared of timber into small farms. By the 1830s, most of our county was surveyed into ranges and lots for farming which also included clearing more land. Although early land clearing was a man’s job, soon some ladies were brave enough to come to the wilderness as well.
In a short time, babies also arrived and if their mother couldn’t supply enough milk for the child, a wet nurse was called upon to help raise the baby. When no wet nurse could be found, the early settlers began to include a cow or two to provide milk. I still have an old picture at home of the five most common dairy cows (Holstein, Ayrshire, Jersey, Brown Swiss and Milking Shorthorn), with a caption below that reads, “mothers of the human race.” Although a few people might disagree, many years ago, milk was declared “the world’s most nearly perfect food.”
In early days, many farms could not afford the luxury of keeping a horse around, so the farmers used a bull as an oxen to do the heavy work of skidding logs and plowing the land. The bull also played a key roll in assuring a new crop of calves for next year. One of our farms was actually chosen by the bull because he liked the spring water on that piece of land and that’s where he was found after he had wandered away when the settler was sleeping. I cannot find a record of who brought the first cow into our county, but I am still looking.
Most of the early protein needed by our settlers was supplied by a deer, rabbit, goose or moose that wandered too close to the homestead.
Cows were and still are the most accepted supplier of milk for drinking, cheese, butter and yogurt. A dual-purpose cow was popular in the start of our county because the cow produced milk and bull calves were fattened up for meat if the settler became tired of venison or the meat could be sold to the logging camps for cash.
As dairy farming progressed, there became two distinct uses for milk. The milk used for drinking had to be produced throughout the year but milk used to make butter or cheese could be produced more cheaply if the cattle ate mostly fresh grass and didn’t have to be fed more expensive stored hay and silage and supplemental grain for winter milk production. Both butter and cheese can be stored in a cool environment throughout several months.
As late as the 1960s, there were more than 600 farms in Pontiac County that milked some cows. Many of these farms only produced milk in the summer months to supply the numerous small cheese factories and butter plants. One hundred years ago many families who lived in towns kept their own cow to produce milk for the family. Most towns had a community pasture close to the town where often a school child would go before and after school to milk the family cow by hand, right in the field. Most of those town cows would stop giving milk in the fall when the grass got to mature to nourish the cow or when it became too cold.
There were always a few farms close to town that milked cows all year around and supplied milk to everyone in town in the winter months as well as some families that didn’t have a cow to milk in the summer.
My grandfather kept both Holsteins which calved in the fall to supply the milk required by the many more families that needed milk when their cow went dry. Grandpa also kept Jersey cows who were bred to calve in the spring when the families who kept a cow would have lots of milk but didn’t have a separator to make cream for deserts and homemade ice cream. Jerseys produced less milk but more butterfat to make cream than Holsteins.
Aurthur Dagg, Gordon Brownlee and Wyman MacKechnie were three of the main suppliers of year round milk production to supply close by towns and delivered in town with a horse drawn milk wagon in summer and horse drawn milk sleigh in winter.
The first purebred Holstein cow in Pontiac was purchased by Edward Thomas Brownlee in 1890 and walked from Aylmer, Que. to Shawville by his brother Ermin Brownlee. This trip took Ermin two days and he and the cow spent the first night in Quyon. The superior genetics from this cow when bred to the best bulls to be found in Canada produced many great dairy cows and bulls that were used by other Pontiac farmers. Some were sold to farms in Ontario and the US. E.T. Brownlee’s son, Clarence Brownlee, bred the first excellent Holstein in the province of Quebec. At one time there were four excellent Holstein cows in Clarence Brownlee’s barn. This was a first in Canada even though many herds were much larger at that time.
Pasteurization of milk was introduced to help eliminate such diseases as tuberculosis. Before pasteurization, all dairy cows in Canada had to be blood tested yearly and vaccinated to make sure that no milk cow could carry or pass on the virus that spreads tuberculosis. Pasteurization also destroys enzymes that help the body digest lactose. Although it is illegal to sell unpasteurized milk in Canada, on several occasions, families have come to our farm with a doctor’s letter stating that some or all of their family could not digest pasteurized milk.
At one time after all milk had to be pasteurized, a local farmer who milked goats by hand was contacted by a doctor to ask him to supply goat’s milk to the hospital for feeding new born babies because goat’s milk is more digestible than cow’s milk.
The Chinese have recently constructed a plant to process baby formula from a mix of goat’s milk, cow’s milk and who knows what in Ontario because Chinese mothers trust Canadian milk more. It’s close to the Saint Lawrence for easy exporting. Although there once was more than 600 farms milking on Pontiac County, the 15 dairy farms that remain today still supply more milk that what is consumed in our county. Yes, the dairy farms today are larger and the dairy cows are much more productive, but every dairy farm adheres to the Canadian Quality Milk program and every remaining dairy farm in Pontiac County is proud to call itself a family farm.
Chris Judd is a farmer in Clarendon on land that has been in his family for generations.
