After the Civil War, nearly half of all the cheese made in America came from New York State, and the best was produced from Herkimer County cows grazing on the limestone-rich pastures north of the Mohawk River. By 1830, dairying was widespread in the county’s towns, and although cheese-making began as a family activity, by 1860 farmers were adopting a factory system in which cooperative factories gathered milk from dozens of farms for a central cheese-maker to mass-produce thousands of pounds. The income from cheese made local farmers prosperous, and from 1865 to the early 1900s Herkimer County farms were among the finest and most modern in the state, with many of the region’s substantial barns and farm buildings built from cheese-making profits. At the factory, milk was weighed and tested for butterfat, poured into large vats, gently heated, and mixed with rennet so curds separated from whey. The curd was cut into cubes, cooked further, strained, and adjusted by careful changes in temperature and timing for each kind of cheese and each batch of milk. The curds were then placed in wooden or metal hoops lined with muslin cheesecloth and tightly pressed to remove liquid. The next day the cheese was moved to a curing room, where it ripened on long tables for 20-30 days, with each wheel turned daily and rubbed with grease to seal its surface before being packed into wooden boxes and shipped to shops and wholesalers around the world.