On Cheese-making in Home Dairies and in Factories. 263 
and witnessed the results, and listened to the managers, of both 
factories and private dairies all over the country, an opinion has 
necessarily been formed ; and fairly as it may have been arrived 
at, it can no longer be in an indifferent or impartial mood that 
one endeavours to express it. Experience has, I am bound to 
report, satisfied the expectations of those who first introduced 
the American factory-system into England. Manufacture on 
the larger scale has, in the case of milk as in that of all other 
raw materials, been found more economical and more profitable. 
A manufactured article of higher average quality, because of 
more uniform excellence, and consequently of greater value, has 
been obtained. The highest skill, hitherto engaged here and 
there in isolated farms on the produce of perhaps 40 to 60 cows, 
has been ensrag:ed in the manufacture of cheese from 400 to 600 
cows. The best machinery and the cheapest power, unavailable in 
the case of small dairies, can be used when the milk of 20 or 30 
such dairies is brought to one point for the purpose. Other ad- 
vantages can also be named ; and, together, it must be admitted 
that they more than counterbalance the risks and difficulties and 
costs which are incidental to the change. 
Objections to the Factoey System. 
To some of these difficulties and objections I will first 
advert : 
(1.) Some estates in dairy districts are already admirably 
equipped for the prosecution of the existing system of home- 
dairying ; and an expenditure, in man_) cases both considerable 
and recent, would be rendered useless if the work of the dairy 
were henceforth to be carried on at a factory. And, where 
estates are not properly equipped, it is held with confidence by 
many, who unquestionably have the interests of the dairy farmer 
at heart, that these must suffer by any factory scheme which shall 
relieve the landowner of the duty of providing adequate accom- 
modation on the several farms. Such accommodation is still 
the exception, not the rule, in dairy districts ; and it is alleged, 
not without plausibility, that the factory-system which will save 
neglectful landowners from an otherwise necessary expenditure, 
may at the same time hinder the much-needed improvements of 
both homes and homesteads which would probably be under- 
• taken if these dairy improvements had to be taken in hand. 
Certainly an immense improvement in cheese-dairying is 
possible without resort to such a revolution in this particulai 
industry as the cheese-factory involves. I had the pleasure of 
visiting a large number of farms on the Peckforton Estate, in 
Cheshire, where Mr. Tollemache has provided everything that 
