1891.] PUBLIC DOCUMENT — No. 4. 391 



pounds of cheese during the season of 1864, the net price of 

 which was $19.60 per hundred pounds. During 1865 eleven 

 factories were in operation, — some of them, how T ever, only 

 a short time, — and the same number in 1866. 



In the latter year nine of them reported an aggregate capi- 

 tal invested of $44,866.57 ; that the whole amount of milk 

 was 10,604,518 pounds, from which was made 1,072,705 

 pounds of cheese, which brought to the farmers, after pay- 

 ing all expenses, $175,240.62. Early in 1869 it was reported 

 that there were not less than twenty factories in success- 

 ful operation in Massachusetts. Ten of these reported an 

 aggregate of 1 ,095,850 pounds of cheese made in 1868. The 

 aggregate capital in 1871 of thirteen factories was reported 

 as about $60,000; that 10,233,450 pounds of milk were 

 used and 948,876 pounds of cured cheese produced. Of 

 these factories the New Braintree led, with an invested 

 capital of $9,000; using 1,679,351 pounds of milk, making 

 165,552 pounds of cured cheese, yielding a net income of 

 $10.71 per hundred pounds. It is impossible at the present 

 time to state the date wdien this association was dissolved. 

 " The organization had its inception at the time of the intro- 

 duction of the factory system of making cheese. The factory 

 at Brimlield and the South Factory at Barre started the same 

 year, and were the first in the New England States to adopt 

 the system. It was a new era in the dairy business. The 

 meetings of the association lasted two days and one evening, 

 with lectures from the best then known speakers, — very 

 much such meetings as the Board now hold. Probably they 

 were a stimulus to the Board, and, indirectly, the mother 

 of ' farmers' institutes ; ' and they only ceased when the 

 Board and institutes took up the work, and the selling of 

 milk became better than cheese-making with Canada to com- 

 pete with." 



The exact number of cheese factories now in operation in 

 the Commonwealth is not known, but it is believed there are 

 but four. Returns from a portion of these only have been 

 received. It is estimated, how T ever, that these factories in 

 1889 made about 150,000 pounds of cheese, using some 

 1,750,000 pounds of milk, and netting about 9 cents per 

 pound. In Boston the last seven months the wholesale 



