The Feilding Star. SATURDAY, MAY 12, 1883. Cheese Factories.

Feilding Star, Volume III, Issue 103, 12 May 1883, Page 2

The Feilding Star. SATURDAY, MAY 12, 1883. Cheese Factories.

Tin*: attention of the whole of the agriculturists in the Colony is now directed to tho formation ot Cheese nnd Butter Factories. Tho advantages offered to fanners, together with the profits derivable from the factories, have become so patent to capitalists that on every side we hear of new companies starting, even in places where the probabilities of success appear small in comparison with other more forward settlements. The high prices factories are now getting for their produce is no doubt acting 1 as an incentive to farmers and others to combine and form similar companies. It has been found that the establishment of a cheese and butter lactory on a large bcale, and adding to it milk condensing, bacon curing, and poultry rearing, that the results are beneficial in a surprising degree to all parties concerned. In England the first Cheese Factory was started in Derbyshire, in tho year 1869. In that year a large meeting of the Derbyshire Agricultural Society was held to consider tfie subject of the formation of factories, and a committee was appointed, and a guarantee fund established for the purpose. It was decided to have a town and country factory. Two Americans who had been accustomed to the management of Cheese Factories in their own country were brought over and superintended the management of the two factories until the system was learned, and now the factories are managed by Englishmen. The principle of the factory system is co-oper-ation. Instead of each farmer making the milk produced on his individual farm into cheese in the dairy attached to the farm houae, the milk produced on many farms is brought together at tho factory, and cheeso is made from all the milk so brought ; thus the farmer is saved much lahor, trouble, and outlay, and the cheese maiie is of uniform quality. Since the first two factories were established, there are now 12 in active operation in Derbyshire alone. One factory was built by the co-operation of 12 or 15 farmers, who subscribed £1 per share, that is, £1 for every cow whose milk was to be sent to the factory. The original cost was £700, and it commenced working five or six years ago. In the year 1880, 2914 cheeses, weighing over 42 tons, were turned out from the factory. They were the ordinary Derbyshire cheeses, and sold for 77s od per cwt, minimum price, to 80s per cwt, maximum price, and, after payment of all expenses, the contributing farmers realised about 9d per gallon for their milk The contributing farmers are allowed to draw on the sale monies to such an amount as the committee considered reasonable, and at tbe end of the season the balance is distributed rateably among the contributors, according to the quantity of milk they have supplied. The season lasts for eight months. The number of cows supplying milk when the factory was in full working order was 300 in. 1881, There were only two persons employed, viz., a man (the manager) and a boy, and they seemed sufficient for the work. It will be seen from the foregoing what splendid profits are made in Kn gland from this source, and it should be a direct inducement to farmers and settlers in the Manchester Block, as well as in other parts of the district, to support by every means the establishment of similar .•actories. Everything necessary is at hand, and the only one thing u&ede d is combination amongst the farmers themselves. This secured, the rest is easy ot accomplishment.