41 
Cheese Factories in DerbysJdre. 
in the movement should be solicited to subscribe to a guarantee 
fund. A sum of 5U00/. having been subscribed, it was resolved 
that 6W. per gallon be paid lor the milk, such payments to be 
made on the last Friday of each month during the manufacturing 
season, the whey to be disposed of at the best possible price. 
When the year's produce had been disposed of, and fair working 
expenses deducted, the balance was to be divided pro rata 
amongst the suppliers of milk. 
At first it was proposed to start only a single factory in the 
county last year ; but Mr. Roe, of Derby, having placed at 
the disposal of the Committee (rent free for the first year) 
a suitable building, formerly a cheese warehouse, situated 
in a central part of the town, the Committee were induced to 
try the experiment in a rural as well as in an urban district. 
Meetings were held in various centres, the Chairman and some 
of the Committee being always present to answer any question, 
and give every information as to the basis on which the 
factory would be carried out. In establishing a factory in a 
rural district, it was deemed desirable not to start with a less 
number of cows than 400, to be kept within a radius of three 
miles, taking the factory as a centre. In the absence of direct rail- 
way communication, this is considered to be the limit of distance ; 
it includes an area of 17,280 acres, which in a purely dairy 
district should furnish cows enough to supply several large fac- 
tories with milk. The Committee held that, in order to insure 
for the system a fair trial, it was essential that a new building, 
embracing every accommodation and requirement, should be 
specially erected for the purpose. The Committee considered 
that it was too much to expect that they should erect a factory 
at their own cost ; and also that it would be unfair, at this 
stage of the proceedings, to ask any landed proprietor to 
build a factory on his estate at his own expense, for the 
purpose of trying experiments for the public benefit, without 
offering him some guarantee that, in case of failure, he should be 
recompensed to some extent for the money he had expended. 
To fully test the merits of the Factory system in this country, it 
was deemed essential that the experiment should extend over a 
period of three years ; and that any landlord erecting a factory 
on his property should place it at the disposal of the Committee 
rent free for the first year, after which a fair annual rent should 
be charged, and, in case the system should prove unprofitable at 
the expiration of the third year, 40 per cent, of the original cost 
of the building should be refunded to the proprietor, the funds 
for such purpose to be raised by a call upon the guarantors. 
Several districts were anxious to avail themselves of the oppor- 
tunity of establishing a factory under such favourable circum- 
