Page 51 - LLR-Exploration II
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There was also a large influx of Portuguese-speaking laborers from the overpopulated Azores’ Islands to Notes:
the coast and valleys of California. The Steele brothers were instant beneficiaries
of this hard-working and talented labor surplus. Their dairy operations soon
employed several hundred workers. Swiss
The Steeles stocked their dairy lands with more than 600 head of first register
milking cows. They employed more than 100 men in raising fences, milking sheds Italian
and hayfields. Their experience in dairying attracted other farmers.
By 1887 the San Luis Obispo Board of Trade boasted that the county had Portugese
surpassed even Marin County as the “banner cow country” of California.
Edgar W. Steele undertook an experiment with 150 milking stock. Over a three-day
period, he produced a pound of butter with every 17.76 pounds of milk and a
pound of
cheese with
every 8.75
pounds of milk. The statewide
average was 25 pounds of milk for
every pound of butter and it took
10 pounds of milk to make a
pound of cheese!
The Steeles’ specialty was cheese.
They divided their property into
five dairies with approximately 150
cows on each dairy. They built 50 to 60 miles of board fences to nurture the cows on rich feed.
As early as 1870, the San Francisco Commercial Herald, the standard commercial and credit reporter for
the West, valued the Steeles holdings at $150 million.
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