RURAL MANUFACTURES 295 



developed rapidly in the southeastern counties of 

 the State.^ The institution of the factory system is 

 attributed to Jesse L. Williams of Eome, New York, 

 whence it spread westwardly to Michigan. Hitherto 

 cheese-making had been a domestic process charac- 

 teristic of the period of pioneering, and in conse- 

 quence the output had been small. By 1867, under 

 the new method, it seemed likely that in a few years 

 the State product would exceed local consumption, 

 and the price was 13.5 to li cents a pound. ^ The 

 low price of wool and sheep reacted on the cheese 

 industr}1 in the State, by promoting a transfer of 

 interest to this new department of agriculture, but 

 even so the Board of Agriculture in 18(38 estimated 

 that not more than one-eighth of the cheese consumed 

 in Michigan was then produced within its borders. 

 However, the domestic manufacture of cheese was 

 not wholly abandoned, and by 1899, 331,176 pounds 

 were produced on the farms of the State. The fac- 

 tory output in that year was, according to the 

 Twelfth Census of the United States, 10,422,582 

 pounds. Ten years later the farm production had 

 fallen to 291,176 pounds, while the factory output 

 advanced to 13,382,160 pounds. The schedule of 

 production by counties indicates that the center of 

 gravity of the cheese industry was in the central 

 counties of the southern peninsula in 1909, with St. 

 Clair leading with an output of 72,390 pounds, fol- 

 lowed at a distance by Kent, Montcalm and Lapeer, 



'"Rept. Mich. Hd. Agr.." 1865, 133. 

 ^Ihkl., 1867, 139. 



