Which came first--the creamery or the large herd?

There's a booklet published online at Archive.org called the  Official state creamery and cheese factory directory and dairy map of Minnesota, from 1898.  That year, Morrison county had only THREE creameries.  The closest one to Buckman was in Royalton, 17 miles away, an impractical distance to haul milk two or three times a week.


They didn't call it "economies of scale" back then, but you couldn't have a large herd of cows if you had no convenient market for the milk.  At the same time,  there was no need for a creamery if no farmer had surplus milk to sell.  

The Janson farm, for instance: the first years after Joseph and Franziska arrived (1883) in Buckman  were spent grubbing trees, clearing crop land, and building, as well as picking rocks in those fields and fencing pasture land for the horses and one or two cows.  They were subsisting.  Did they have produce to sell?  I don't know.  They moved to Virginia in 1900, and maybe the creamery was built by the time they returned.  Anton took over, and bought Jersey cows because they were small, gentle, and the milk was high in butter-fat, which sorta points to being a  member of the new Buckman Creamery.  His son (my uncle) Reinhard certainly was, as he milked a large herd of Holsteins.

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In the 1915  "History of Morrison and Todd counties",  John Schmolke's bio says he "has built five creameries and cream stations in this locality to establish a market for the cream.  They are located at Buckman, Ramey, Lastrup, Agram and New Pierz".  


It's possible you want to know more about how creameries were run.  Try this booklet, also on Archive.org:   Marketing practices of Wisconsin and Minnesota creameries, from 1918.  


It's a thriller!