Dairyland Stories

All of us know the dairy industry is important to Wisconsin; our (hopefully) contented cows have become the state's totem more so than our official mascot, the badger. Edward Janus walks a step further by declaring: “I believe the dairy cow created Wisconsin.”

The claim made in his book Creating Dairyland (Wisconsin Historical Society Press) falls hollow on the ears of city and suburban dwellers. Sure, milk cows are part of the scenery and yes, milk is money. But hear him out: “By enriching our soil with her prodigious manure and her beloved grass,” he writes, cows probably saved Wisconsin from the Dust Bowl and created a system of sustainable agriculture. As lumber barons and other tycoons raped the rich land in the early decades of statehood, dairy farmers held fast to a common sense ethic of the land. “For the dairy revolution was a get-rich-slowly scheme, an antidote to the economics of exploitation.”

And there can be something ennobling about tending to the cows. “This ethic of caring is a pervasive influence in our lives. Cows have shaped us,” Janus writes. We hope it's true, though the lesson of the milk cows has been increasingly lost on a society drinking milk from plastic cartons that wind up as landfill.

Creating Dairyland also gives a history of the state's dairy farmers and collects many of their stories, but an ethic of value is the soil from which Janus' words grow. He is the Aldo Leopold of the family farm. “I hold that dairy farming is a moral profession, because every dairy farmer I know understands his or her obligation to care well for living things.”

Edward Janus's book launch takes place 5-8 p.m., June 16 at Middleton's Capitol Brewery, 7734 Terrace Ave. Grilled Wisconsin cheese sandwiches will be provided.