44 
Repcn'i on the Farm Prize Competition 
in quality that of tlie best-managed private dairies. Some have 
been let to private cheese-makers, who purchase milk from farmers 
in the neighbourhood and make it into cheese, paying farmers 
for the milk and selling the manufactured article, just as is 
done by ordinary manufacturers who buy the raw material and 
sell the manufactured goods. Nevertheless, it is certain that 
the factory system has extended during the past few years. 
"Whether this is altogether a matter for congratulation is ques- 
tionable. To the farmer's household, indeed, there is a vast 
saving of labour and responsibility ; but on holdings of a mode- 
rate size, where the capital invested is not large, it is almost a 
necessity that every member of the household should assist in 
making, as well as in economising, money, and young as well as 
older people could not be more usefully employed than in jointly 
assisting with the dairy and collateral occupations. 
Unprejudiced observers admit that the factory system has 
done, and is doing, great and lasting good to Derbyshire farmers. 
It has broken up the monopoly formerly enjoyed by the old 
cheese-factoi"S, has shown the farmer the value of his milk, has 
enabled farmers genei'ally to realise lai'ger incomes, and has 
delivered them from the vicious system of getting money in 
advance from cheese-factors, with the inevitable result of being 
compelled to accept any price that might be offered when the 
day of settlement arrived. With a factory in his neighbourhood 
the fai'mer obtains a sure and ready market for his milk, with- 
out any trouble or expense. In some cases the factory is only a 
depot for the supply of milk to dealers, who make cheese of the 
surplus ; while others make cheese during five or six months in 
the year, and are closed for the remainder of the time. In close 
times farmers who contribute milk to these factories dispose of 
their commodity by private arrangement. 
The sale of milk has increased enormously. In 1872 the 
quantity that passed over the Midland Railway, chiefly to 
London, was 910,000 gallons. In 1880 it was estimated by the 
railway officials at 5^ millions of gallons. I am indebted to the 
General Manager of the Midland Railway for the information 
that during the twelve months ending October 1888 there were 
8,393,292 gallons passed over the Midland Railway from Derby- 
shire. It is conveyed by slow and fast trains, and where 
necessary, and the traffic is of sufficient magnitude, special 
trains are provided for the carriage of milk. The freightage is 
^d. per imperial gallon for distances not exceeding 20 miles, Id. 
per 100 miles or less, and l^d. for any distance above 150 miles. 
From the north and east parts of Derbyshire less milk is sent to 
London than to factories or to such towns as Manchester and 
