"Without extra care and cleanliness as to the pails and milk-cans there is liability of sour milk from time to time, which, of course, would not be received at the factory, as milk only slightly acid would damage that with which it came in contact. The milk-cans for carrying the milk, it may be observed, are somewhat difficult to cleanse and to keep sweet; and the confinement of the milk, and its agitation while being carried in hot weather, render it susceptible to change, especially if there be the least taint of acidity about the cans.

"Dissatisfaction often occurs at the factory with regard to the condition of milk, the superintendent being certain that the milk is slightly and perhaps perceptibly changed, while the farmer stoutly insists that it is perfectly sweet; and he goes home in no pleasant mood, complaining that his cans were not perfectly cleansed, laying the fault of the sour milk upon some member of his family, or disbelieving that the milk was changed. If the milk is not received at the factory it is a loss to the stockholders. Hence it will be seen that more or less trouble is brought about on this account. Not unfrequently bad feeling is engendered on the part of the farmer and his family, and he withdraws from the association.

"Another objection is urged, and with some apparent reason, that the quality of milk varies with different persons, according to the manner in which the cows are supplied with food and are managed throughout the season. It is contended that clean, sweet, upland pasture, an abundance of food, and plentiful supply of pure water, cattle wintered well and receiving careful treatment in every respect, will produce a better quality of milk, from which more and better cheese can be made than when the reverse is practised. And yet the poor herd that has been wintered improperly, that is pastured on the coarse herbage of low lands, with general bad treatment on the part of the owner, is credited according to the quantity furnished on an equality with the better herd. It is not easy to see how this can be remedied without excluding such from the association."

The difficulties which cheese-factories must necessarily contend with are thus shown to be somewhat serious; but that they can be overcome has been proved by practical test in America.

It now only remains to endeavour to estimate the adaptability of the American cheese-factory system to England. The materials for this estimate I have collected chiefly by personal visits to dairy districts, and partly also by correspondence with influential dairymen. My enquiries have, I venture to think, produced a twofold result. In the first place they have afforded me material for the following estimate; and secondly, they have performed the much more important function of inducing a large number of dairy-farmers to make this estimate for themselves in their own individual When the principal persons concerned in such a matter, where the question is one of superseding a custom sanctioned by the usage of generations, begin seriously to consider whether the new system may not be better than the one handed down to them by their forefathers, they have in most cases gone half way towards forming a correct judgment. In Derbyshire a committee of landlords and tenantfarmers, nominated by the Derbyshire Agricultural Society, are, at this moment, considering the desirability of starting an experi

cases.

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 vanquishing 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 are 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 en 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 dairymen 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 important 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 dairyfarmers 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.

dairymaids; and (2) those in which it is made chiefly by the farmer's wife or daughters. With few exceptions the former class of dairy-farmers would, we find, be glad to send their milk to a factory under certain conditions, most of them preferring the idea of selling it at a fixed price per gallon. Their chief inducement is the difficulty of getting and keeping good dairymaids. This fact is also the reason why few such men are exclusively dairy-farmers, even where their land is better adapted for dairying than for feeding. The element of uncertainty prevents a dairyman from "putting all his eggs in one basket;" but remove that uncertainty, and the whole of the farmer's capital and energy would be embarked in the more profitable branch of his business. Again, hired dairymaids seldom make such good cheese as the farmer's wife, because they have no real interest in the result, so that in dairy districts it is proverbial that the only way to make good cheese is "to marry the dairymaid." Although the cost of cheese-making, curing, &c., would probably be somewhat reduced on such farms, this is altogether a secondary consideration, and may be regarded as unimportant when compared with the probably increased price obtained for the cheese, and the extension of dairying at the expense of feeding.

On the other farms we have a totally different and much more complicated question; and as they form the great bulk of those devoted more or less to dairying, its discussion deserves the most careful consideration.* The cheese being made either by the farmer's wife or one or more of his daughters, he considers that the labour costs him nothing; that the work is a duty in the former case, and a wholesome discipline in the latter. A servant is kept, who assists in the cheese-making; but if the milk were sent to the factory she would still be required for the house-work. In larger dairies, perhaps two, or even three, female servants are kept; but, it is urged, that if cheese were not made at home, and all but one of these discharged, an extra man would be required to take the milk to the factory. Such is the argument, and while those ideas prevail, it admits of no direct answer, except with regard to the conveyance of milk. If, as would probably be the case, the milk were taken to the factory by the carrier, the expense would be a trifle compared with the wages of an extra man; but, if not, a boy could do the work, and there are few farms from which this small additional daily labour could not be obtained from the existing staff. Discarding this objection as of no great weight, let us endeavour to estimate the money value

*I am much indebted to Mr. Joseph Aston, of Brassey Green, Tarporley, for a valuable suggestive letter on this portion of my subject; but that gentleman must not be held responsible for my statements.-H. M. J.

of the remainder of the argument, and ask whether it is a fair payment for the incessant drudgery and discomfort which inevitably accompanies family cheese-making.

Suppose a dairy of forty cows-a fair average size for the conditions of the case each cow yielding 4 cwts. of cheese per annum, and presuming that the cost of anatto, salt, bandages, &c., would be the same at home as at the factory, we have 8 tons of cheese per annum, the cost for manufacturing which at a factory in America, where labour is dear, would be d. per lb. If we say 57. per ton would be the cost of making, the annual payment on this head would be 407. per annum. But it is a proved fact that factory cheese sells at an average price of 10s. per cwt. (107. per ton) above that made at private dairies, chiefly on account of its uniformity, but also to some extent on account of its superior quality, both attributes being the result of the employment of skilled labour. The extra receipts on this head would amount to 807. per annum for all cheese but that of the very best dairy-farmers, and the household inconveniences would thus be got rid of, not only without cost, but with a considerable bonus into the bargain. Another advantage would be the saving of capital invested in dairy-apparatus, and the saving of annual outlay for repairs, &c. Again, if the factory were established on the joint-stock principle, as sketched out in Mr. Willard's letter, the dairy-farmer would receive his dividend as a shareholder; and he might, not impossibly, find this branch of dairying as profitable as any other.

Having thus endeavoured to give an impartial description of the various aspects of this question, I leave it in the hands of English dairy-farmers and their landlords to consider whether their interest requires them to take any active steps with a view of establishing cheese-factories in England.

XI.-On the Treatment of the Reclaimed Bog-land of
Whittlesea Mere. By W. WELLS, M.P.

A PAPER was written in the twenty-first volume of the Society's
'Journal' on the drainage of Whittlesea Mere, and in it, besides
other matter, a short account was given of the process of spreading,
upon a part of the surrounding tract of peat-bog, a coating of
soil, of an average thickness of five inches, taken from the bed
of the mere.
From the point whence the soil was taken, to the

They would be somewhat more; the difference being that between retail prices and wholesale.

A larger quantity of cheese would probably be obtained from a given quantity of milk than can be got under the existing system.

farthest point of delivery, the distance was nearly two miles, and the expense of the operation very great. The cost, indeed, has so far exceeded the estimate given in the paper alluded to, that this opportunity should be taken of giving the actual result, now that the work is finished, the plant sold off, and the account closed. The closest calculation, then, which it has been found possible to make, gives for the cost of claying to the depth of six inches from 187. to 197., and for a depth of four inches between 157. and 167.

The land thus clayed lets readily for 30s. an acre, so that, even at the increased cost, it has proved a remunerative operation, especially when it is borne in mind that the land was previously in the state of rough bog, producing no rent whatever.

At a distance of two miles from the Mere, and near the village of Holme, a corner of the peaty tract runs up to the higher land of the surrounding country, and about 230 acres of this has been taken into a home farm, nearly 200 acres having been first covered with clay to an average depth of 3 inches. The cost of claying this piece of bog-land has been small in comparison with that just referred to. Here the average distance to which the clay was carried did not exceed half a mile; the excavation was easier, and, after a short time, steam-power was called in ; and an engine, traction-rope, and portable rails, were substituted for horses, the cost on the completion of the work being found to have been little over 91. per acre.

It has been suggested that, as the operation was finished in the spring of 1866, sufficient time has elapsed to make it a matter of interest to record what the experience of nearly four years has shown to be advantageous or otherwise in the management of bog-land, recently reclaimed and clayed.

Of the 230 acres taken into the farm, although a small proportion had been more or less under cultivation, some for two or three years, and some for a longer period, by far the larger part consisted of the roughest kind of bog. Of the whole, about 190 acres have been clayed, and 40 remain unclayed. Of these 40 acres, about 15 had been for several years under cultivation, and 25 only for one or two years.

It would have been far better, doubtless, if, in anticipation of the claying, the rougher part could have been prepared, and brought into a state of semi-cultivation a few years previously, so that something like a top-soil should have been forming, with which the clay, when deposited on it, would have readily amalgamated in the course of the usual farming operations. As it was, however, circumstances made it necessary that the whole tract should be taken in hand at once, and the clay being spread, on an average, at the rate of half an acre a day, the whole 190 acres were covered within a very limited time.