534 
Report on Cheesc-maldng in Derhysiiire. 
them copper, with their appliances, must have been expensive 
articles, but are now Ijing in an outhouse, and probably 
filled with corn or meal. The cheese-presses are merely lumber, 
and some of them "would have found a very appropriate 
place in the " ancient implement-shed " at Kilburn, and not 
have been wished back again. Cheese-vats used as feeding- 
troughs or flower-pots ; whey-tanks dry and dusty ; pigstyes 
without inhabitants ; the time-honoured occupation of the dairy- 
maid a thing of the past ; and from the best authority it is found 
that only one-half to two-thirds of the cheese made in the 
county twenty years ago, is now produced. But in passing over 
the district, as the judges did by the early morning trains, they 
found at nearly every station numbers of carts unloading milk 
to be forwarded to London, Liverpool, Birmingham, and other 
large towns. Whence the change ? It did not appear that there 
were any special advantages either in facilities of transit, or in 
the prices given for the milk, as the large bulk of it was sent to 
London, distant 130 miles, and 2d. per barn gallon, being fully 
12^ per cent, of its value at Paddington, charged for its convey- 
ance there, nor was it found that the milk was of any richer 
quality than elsewhere. The probability is that several causes 
are mainly responsible for the change. One would be that the 
Derbyshii'e system of cheese-making entails a great amount of 
extra and laborious work in its manufacture compared with 
some others, and of which all concerned in it would gladly be 
quit, particularly the wife, on whom the largest portion often fell, 
as she was thus enabled to add materially to the well-being and 
comfort of the household. Foreign competition has doubtless 
been a very prominent cause. Messrs. Etches and Co., the well- 
known cheese-factors of Derby, say respecting this : — " The 
constantly increasing importation of foreign, the great improve- 
ment in its manufacture, the consequent lowering effect on our 
home-made, the scarcity of good makers here, the high prices 
ofiered at the outset by milk-dealers, are amongst the chief 
causes of the alteration, which has been far more rapid in the 
last ten years than in the previous decade." The weekly pay- 
ment for milk has doubtless not been overlooked in comparison 
with the distant but lumpy receipts for cheese. There is, how- 
ever, one considerable advantage that producers of milk enjoy 
in this county, viz., their proximity to the vast breweries of 
Allsopp, Bass, and others, at Burton, of world-wide fame ; from 
these breweries, immense quantities of grains are turned out 
daily, and can be obtained to almost any extent at about 2d. per 
bushel during the late spring and summer months. These, if 
well trodden into tanks, will keep sweet and good for twelve 
months, and it was nothing unusual to find from 10,000 to 12,000 
