44 Thirty-Fifth Annual Report of the 



I. The cheese in the central cin-ing- room arc under the care 

 of an experienced cheesemaker whose business it is to examine 

 them carefully, and to report any defect at once. Having the 

 cheese from a number of factories for comparison, he is in a 

 much better position to criticise intelligently than the man who 

 sees only his own cheese, and is obliged, as it were, to judge 

 himself by himself. 



2. The factories are of necessity in the neighborhood of the 

 central curing room, so that the makers have oin^nrtunities of 

 inspecting their own cheese and comparing them with cheese from 

 other factories. The spirit of emulation is thus fostered in a 

 very pronounced degree. 



3. The cheese are better boxed and more carefully loaded 

 into the cars because it is easier to get one man to do a thing right 

 than to make ten do it. 



4. The central system facilitates the selling of the cheese 

 and the proper inspection before delivery. 



The disadvantages of, or the objections to, the central curing 

 room plan lie chiefly in the cost of erection and operation as 

 compared with the cost of improving and maintaining the cheese 

 factory curing rooms. The comparative cost would vary accord- 

 ing to locality, but on the whole it would cost rather more to 

 build a central curing room than it would to fix up the curing 

 rooms at the factories from which the cheese would come. If 

 new factories had to be built, so that the whole cost of a curing 

 room would be avoided, the relative cost might then be in 

 favor of the central establishment. 



As for comparative operating expenses, much depends on 

 the size of the factories. In the largest factories the services 

 of one man can be dispensed with when the cheese do not have 

 to be taken care of or boxed, but this does not apply to the 

 same extent in factories where only two or three men are em- 

 ployed. The cheese must be conveyed to the shipping point in 

 any case, and it costs the patron just as much,, and sometimes 

 more, to haul his proportion of cheese as it does when the work 

 is done by contract and he pa3^s his share. Indeed there is a 

 great deal to be said in favor of the contract system of haulin'g 

 ■ cheese in any circumstances. The contractor is under the con- 

 trol of the parties who engage him, and he can be compelled to 

 provide suitable wagons, always clean, and be held responsible 

 in every way for the proper performance of his duties. 



It will cost less to supply ice for a central cool curing room 

 than it would to furnish the required quantity to secure the same 

 results at 10 or 12 cheese factories. A given quantity of ice 

 will waste more divided into several lots than it will stored in 

 one place. 



