120 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



" Cheese factory associations are organized in neighborhoods of 

 ten or a dozen or more farmers. 



When it is proposed to start a factory, several persons who 

 are neighbors to each other get together and talk over the matter 

 among themselves. If enough are found willing to turn in their 

 dairies together, so as to make a fair start, (say three hundred 

 cows,) a committee is appointed to look further into the matter, to 

 visit factories, and get all the information on the subject that can 

 be had. A favorable report from the committee being had, they 

 then organize, choose directors, and adopt some general rules or 

 plan for the guidance of the association. The next step will be 

 the selection of some experienced cheese maker as superintendent, 

 and the place for the erection of the factory building. 



Generally some person proposes to put up the buildings on his 

 own account, and to manufacture and take care of the cheese at a 

 fixed price per pound, demanding a contract on the part of the 

 farmers to furnish the milk of the requisite number of cows for a 

 certain number of years. 



The milk of about four hundred cows, it is believed, is the 

 smallest quantity that can be employed by the manufacturer, (when 

 cheese making is his sole business,) in order to obtain a fair living 

 compensation for services, while the milk of a thousand cows can 

 be manufactured at but little extra expense comparatively. 



In choosing a place for the erection of the factory buildings, 

 two requisites are sought — good water and convenience as to 

 access and distance for the dairies furnishing the milk. The site, 

 above all, should command an abundance of pure cool spring 

 water, and the supply should be unfailing as well as abundant. 

 This is regarded by those who have had longest experience at the 

 business as imperative. Its temperature should not be above 50° 

 Fahr. unless the supply is very plentiful, in which case a temper- 

 ature of 52° or 53° might serve.* 



Even in family cheese making a considerable quantity of water 

 is needed in various ways about the dairy, for cooling milk, cook- 

 ing the curd and keeping the utensils and buildings clean and 



* At one factory which I visited in Ohio, the spring had failed; consequently, not 

 having cold vrater to reduce the temperature of the milk it was made up both night 

 and mornin;^, thus involving doiiVjle labor, and even more, for it required longer 

 cooking, and (not being acquainted with the use of sour whey with milk too sweet) 

 an inferior product also. — [S. L. G.] 



