( 37 ) 
II. — Report on the System of Cheese-maliiiig practised on the Four 
Prize Dairy Farms. By Thomas F. Jackson, of Tattenhall 
Hall, near Chester. 
Having a large dairy myself, and having always taken a lively 
interest in cheese-making and dairy farming generally, I looked 
forward with very considerable pleasure to visiting the Somerset- 
shire and Wiltshire dairies, and my expectations were more 
than realised. Aided by the moist climate of this part of 
England, the rich well-managed pastures are well suited for 
dairy purposes. The cows thus yield a large quantity of 
milk, which under skilful manipulation produces the rich fine- 
flavoured cheese for which this district is famous, and which 
commands a high price. In nearly all the farms entered for com- 
petition in Classes 3 and 4, the dairy produce was the principal 
means of the large returns ; and with only one exception the 
dairy was managed by the farmer's wife, who, in cases where 
the accommodation was insufficient, having to work early and 
late : 
" Each morning finds her task begun, 
Each evening sees it close, 
Something attempted, something done. 
Has earned a niglit's repose." 
It is not a part of our duty to say whether the same work 
under a skilful manager could not be more economically done 
in factories, where the best apparatus for saving labour would 
be made available. The prizes offered by the Royal Agricul- 
tural Society have certainly stimulated improvements in dairy 
machinery. The practical way in which dairy appliances were 
tried in the Bristol Showyard tested their merits, and intending 
purchasers will, by referring to the Report of the Trials, see 
which most suits their purpose. We think the farmers in Somer- 
setshire have dairy appliances equal, if not superior, to those in 
any other county in England ; but some of the landov/ners might 
very much facilitate cheese-making by erecting more suitable 
premises. There is in Somersetshire, as in the more northern 
cheese districts, the ever increasing difficulty of obtaining efficient 
female servants to assist in the dairy work, most girls preferring 
the higher wages and shorter hours of a town life. There is so 
much similarity in the method of cheese-making in Somerset- 
shire, that by describing one dairy and the system pursued one 
very nearly describes all, the Cheddar system claiming to be the 
first and almost the only system of cheese-making reduced to rule. 
The dairy management of the First-Prize Farm (Class 3) is carried 
on with great care under the management of Mrs. Steeds, and a large 
