Derby Prize- Farm Competition, 1881. 
461 
whole system ] ,000,000 gallons of milk, and that this year they 
will convey 5,500,000 gallons, and the quantity is annually in- 
creasing. It is almost a misnomer to talk of dairy-farms in 
these days, when upon many of them the dairy is never used, and 
the cumbrous old presses and the other appliances for cheese- 
making are as obsolete as a flail or <a horse threshing-machine, 
and as useless as Gog and Magog. The fear that the milk-trade 
will be overdone is sound, did we not believe that the populations 
of our great towns have only just begun to drink milk and to 
appreciate its necessity as an article of diet and of cookery. It 
is a taste which must grow, and its extended use among the 
children of our towns and villages will do much to build up a 
vigorous and healthy generation. It may be, that in spring 
there will be more milk produced than can be consumed, but 
provision must be made lor this overplus, and we found some 
farms upon which cheese-making had to be resorted to for a few 
weeks in the early summer. When a farmer can retail his 
milk, as is the case at Markeaton Park, which is only two miles 
from Derby, the price received is very remunerative, but where 
he has to send his milk four iniles to a station and to pay the 
carriage, the price he realises is not more than can be made of 
it in good cheese or butter. But there is the absence of any 
household bustle, and there are the weekly payments, which are 
very convenient. That last advantage holds good in the case of 
butter, and if there was a ready sale for skim-milk, or if it could 
be applied more profitably than giving it to pigs or calves, there 
is room enough for a good profit to be made by butter-making at 
present prices. For bread and biscuit-baking, and as an article 
of food, there ought to be a more general demand for flat or 
skim-milk, and it is also more valuable for cheese-making than 
it is for feeding animals upon a farm. 
There was a scare, especially among landlords and agents, 
that milk-selling would soon ruin dairy-farms. There would 
be everything taken off and nothing returned to the land, not 
even the whey or the butter-milk, as when cheese and butter 
were made. No pigs would be kept, no calves reared, and no 
manure made. When milk is all sold to a cheese or butter 
factory, and no dairy refuse brought back, this may be the case ; 
but the milk-seller has to supply pretty nearly the same daily 
quantity all the year round. Moreover, the price of milk is 
always dearer in the winter than in the summer months, and no 
farmer can produce an abundance of milk in the winter without 
the aid of artificial food. The most successful instances, both 
in the immense production of milk and in the financial returns, 
that we have recorded, show how largely purchased food may 
with a profit be used in the manufacture of milk. The late 
