The country school was very important and heroic teachers firmly set the
values of life.


    European precedents influenced farming in Wis-
consin. Improvements in cattle, swine, sheep, and
horses as noted in England, France, and Spain were
ultimately reflected in the showings of livestock at
fairs.

             EARLY DAIRYING
    Along with their knowledge of livestock, the im-
migrants brought cheese-making skills. Soon after
the Swiss formed the colony at New Glarus in 1845
they were making Swiss cheese.
    Chester Hazen erected the first building in the
state for the sole production of cheese in Rising Sun
Grange in Section 3 of Waupun at Ladoga. The ris-
ing sun was the trademark of Hazen's factory, and
one is etched on his tombstone in Wedge's Prairie
cemetery.


    Early cheese factories in Wisconsin were really
cooperatives. A number of farmers got together and
agreed to bring their milk to a central place. A build-
ing was constructed and a cheese maker employed.
By 1870 there were about fifty cheese factories in
Wisconsin. Butter making was also becoming com-
mercial.
    The dairy industry did not have much of an in-
centive until the collapse of the wheat boom. A cow,
in 1848, was worth about twelve dollars and not more
than twenty-four dollars ten years later. There were
a few farmers, of course, who made butter and
shipped it to Milwaukee, or when the weather was
too warm for shipping or keeping of butter, they
made cheese.
    It was soon learned that in the hilly parts of the
state, where it was impossible to raise much corn,


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