840 ANNUAL, REPORT OF THE Off. Doc. 



teries), or, as we would call tliein, cheese factories, have been built 

 all through the surrounding country until there are over 100 of 

 these. To theiu the peasants carry the milk every morning and 

 the factory work is under the supervision of the Roquefort com- 

 panies. In many cases the companies buy the milk at the factories, 

 pa\1ng from .fl.75 to |2.G0 per 100 pounds, or 16 to 24 cents per 

 gallon, according to the season and consequent solid contents of 

 the milk. 



The sheep maintained for this dairy industry are a big-bodied, 

 long-legged, wiiite-faced breed, called the Larzac. Heads, legs and 

 bellies are bare and the animals yield fleece of medium wool aver- 

 aging about five pounds. Their tails are never cut and the longer 

 they are the more the animals are esteemed for milk producers. 

 Lambs are dropped in mid-winter and the ewes are milked until 

 July or August. The active cheese-making season is thus limited 

 to five or six months and the rest of the year the sheep recuperate, 

 while the Roquefort caves and villagers are busy curing, packing 

 and shipping cheese. Good flocks of ewes yield an average of one 

 quart of milk a day per head, during the season. The cheese prod- 

 uct is estimated at 25 to 30 pounds per year to the ewe. The sheep 

 contributing to this Roquefort industry are mainly owned within 

 fifty miles, although some of them are double that distance. Alto- 

 gether, there are at least half a million (500,000) ewes milked every 

 year in this region for the purpose of making cheese. 



The Roquefort cheese is quite common in American markets. 

 The details of its manufacture need not be given here. It is usually 

 about 8 inches in diameter and 3^ or 4 inches thick and weighs 4 

 pounds, or a. little more. At the cave a good cheese is w^orth at 

 least one dollar. It generally comes to this country closely wrap- 

 ped in tin-foil. The total annual production of Roquefort proper, 

 approximates 12,000,000 pounds, and when I visited the caves, in 

 the month of August, they contained nearly three millions of these 

 rich, highly prized, and high priced cheeses, in various stages of 

 curing, finish and preparation for market. 



The labor of hauling all this cheese from, the distant factories, 

 over and through mountains and valleys, up to the town and the 

 caves, and down again to the railway station, is a heavy tax upon 

 the industr}', but seems to be regarded as a matter of course. The 

 work is performed with very long-bodied, two-wheeled vehicles 

 and heavy non-de-script horses, hitched tandem or tridem. The 

 loads are sometimes very large and curiously balanced by several 

 hundred-weight of stone, hung in chains, to different parts of the 

 cart. 



From Roquefort in Aveyron, the next move to be made, and the 

 last, to study French dairying, will be northeasterly to the Jura 



