and its adaptahilUij to Englisli Dairy Didrictx. 
201 
mental factory in their own district. The chief cause of this 
movement is the increased and increasing relative price of 
American factory-cheese ; but the knowledge of this fact has 
now another effect than the simple production of inert surprise, 
it has made the dairy-farmers consider the possibility of van- 
quishing their rivals with their own weapons.* 
The first step towards forming a correct estimate of the 
adaptability of the system of one country to the practice of 
another, is to ascertain what conditions arc alike in the two- 
regions, and what are different; the second step is to show 
whether the differences are in favour of the introduction of the 
foreign system or are prejudicial to it. 
Most of the essential conditions are different in America from 
what they are in England. Land is cheaper there, and labour is 
dearer ; therefore there is more inducement to economise labour, 
while a somewhat smaller return is not felt so much as where the 
rent is a heavier burden. In England we make nearly all our 
cheese for home consumption, while in America a very large 
proportion is for export ; therefore, American cheese is at the 
disadvantage of cost of transport, and deterioration in quality 
while cn route. Our roads are better than those in the United 
States : the conveyance of milk should, therefore, be easier 
and (owing to the price of labour) cheaper with us than it is 
there. Our climate is more equable than that of America — the 
summers are not so intensely hot, nor are the winters so cold — so 
that we are more favourably situated for making good cheese and 
curing it properly than the Americans. 
With the exception of the price of labour, which renders the 
factory-system of the highest importance in America; and the 
comparative cheapness of land, which enables American dairy- 
men to compete in our markets notwithstanding the cost of 
transport, all the conditions are in favour of our making better 
cheese than they can across the Atlantic. We may also add the 
additional cleanliness of a private dairy as a very impoitmt item. 
But still the fact remains that the American cheese-makers are 
beating us in our own markets. This must be attributable either 
to the factory-system or the method of cheese-making ; and I 
have therefore endeavoured to give an idea of both. 
I have received a large number of letters, and have taken a 
mass of notes in reference to the question whether English dairy- 
larmers will be inclined to adopt the American factory -system. 
From this point of view English dairies may be divided into 
two classes, viz. (1) those in which the cheese is made by hired 
* A cheese factory is also being established in Cheshire. 
