252 REPORT OF THE DArrnY DEPARTMENT OF THB 
‘carefully examined by itself and in its relation to other factors 
and to the finished product. In cheese production, however, 
though it is a manufacturing enterprise and one of great impor- 
ance, this business-like, systematic study of details has been 
given by very few makers. It will, perhaps, not appear so 
strange that such is the case when we consider the development 
of the cheese industry. The time is not yet very remote when 
practically all New York State cheese was made in the home 
dairy, no factories being in existence. Then it would be noticed 
in a community that one farmer was more successful than his 
neighbors in handling the milk from his herd, and secured a 
better price for his products. To ayail themselves of this 
advantage from better management of the milk, these neighbors 
turned over to this better qualified manufacturer the raw mate- 
rial from their own herds. As the economy in handling products 
in quantity became apparent, to say nothing of improvement in 
quality, it led to a rapid extension of the system, until the fac- 
tory business has grown to its present proportions and home 
cheese-making has become almost a lost art. 
The entire procedure in successful cheese-making has been 
founded, until within a few years, on tradition and good judg- 
ment. Experience rather than a knowledge of principles has 
been the maker’s guide. At first the young man who had worked — 
for that successful dairy farmer long enough to acquire a thor- 
ough knowledge of his methods was employed when a new cen- 
ter of cheese-making was established; but the building of new 
factories soon outstripped the supply of men well prepared to 
manage them. So long as each factory could get for its head a 
trained man of good judgment, thoroughly impressed with the 
necessity of strictly observing the constantly varying conditions 
of the atmosphere and well aware of the effect of these and 
other conditions upon the quality of his product, these coépera- 
tive factories were fairly successful. When the demand for . 
factories became greater, men competent to manage all of them 
were not available; and the mediocre cheese-maker, handicapped 
as he often was by his location in a factory poorly planned and 
