RISE AND PRIGRESS OF THE CHEESE FACTORY INDUSTRY IN CANADA.

Waikato Times, Volume XX, Issue 1654, 10 February 1883, Page 3

RISE AND PRIGRESS OF THE CHEESE FACTORY INDUSTRY IN CANADA.

The following interesting-particulars are from the Toronto Globe.oiDecember. I,sth, 1882:-, ifJj'-: I iM.)>'/,

A HAPPY IDEA. In 1856 the cheese factory system arose by accident hi;' 'New ■ York State. Like Mr Bannie, Jesse Williams, of Rome, was a cheese-maker of great note. His son, lion. George, "was " also engaged extensively in' the same ' business. A large order having come 1 in for both, 1 and the son fearing' lie'could not make •,cheese equal to his father's, it was decided that the milk of the two farms should^ be manufactured at Jesse Williams' dairy. The plan worked admirably,' and 'Mr Williams thought a large number might 1 share in it as well as two. Next year he and a number 6f his neighbours combined? and started an extensive cheese factory, wbi,ch manufactured cheese of so rare an excellence, that it at once commanded the market. Then, slowly at first, the factory system ppread over several counties, of New York^ among them Herkimcr county. , ' ' '

THE FATHER OF CANADIAN CHEESEMAKING. From Herkimer came to Norwich in 1863' Mr Harvey Harrington, and, delighted with the country, let a contract in, September for 'the little factory which I visited near Norwich, and which is 1 one' of/q'nninber successfully operated by Mr Farrington, tlie son of ttie ' pioneer. Harvey Farrington was in many respects a grand man. Mr Ballantyne, M.P.P., one of the best informed cheese-men in Canada, speaking to me of the old New Yorker, says, '"He was the purest and noblest minded man I ever met." in cheese-making he was an enthusiast, and not only built his own factories but aided others in building theirs, and readily imparted his own knowledge and the results of his well-directed experiments in cheese-making to all his neighbours interested iii the business. His factoiy was not the first to begin operations, having been preceded a few days by the neighbouring factory then owned by a Mr Smith ; but as the first contract for a cheese factory was let by Farrington, and as he did so much to encourage the establishment of other factories and spread a knowledge of good methods of cheesernaking, he is justly recognised as the father of the great cheese industry of Canada. So devoted was lie to cheesemaking, that hie last words oh Ins dying bed—written, for he could not speak— weie in regard to cheese.

KAPID KXTE^SIOX. In 1804 the first cheese factory commenced ; three years later factories covered Oxford and thickly studded several other counties. Cheese-making thus become the special industry of a large section just when stock-raising was beginning to do its good work in many counties in improving the fertility of the farms and increasing the prosperity of the country. Oxford thus received its permanent bent, as Wellington did also in another direction. The tremendous expansion of subsequent years was not confined to Canada; it was felt proportionally in the United States. It culminated in a severe crisis. The cheese prodiict instead of being porous, ill-cured, and inferior in every respect, was now a close grained, finely-flavoured, longkeeping, skipperless article of comparatively uniform excellence throughout, but the old reputation of the cheese of this continent still lingered in Britain, and the demand for the import could not keep pace under the circumstances with the vast increase in production. So, one year— 1876 —cheese-making generally proved, unprofitable, pi ices fell to a mere trifle, and thousands of boxes of cheese in Oxford alone remained unsold for a long time. The dullness in the cheese market passed away ,quickly, however, and the increased demand which followed the low prices, aided by the offorts of the Daily men's Association, organized in a drawing together of cheese makers in the vague hope that united effort might find n market, resulted in the vast development of the cheese industry within recent years. Statistics of the present extent of the cheese industry are not available. In , this county alone, however, there aie at least fifty cheese factories, utilizing the milk of nearly 25,000 cows, and making about 10,000,000 pounds of cheese annually, valued at over $1,000,000. Tlnough Perth, Middlesex, Biuce, Huron, and Grey hundreds of factories are found, while many others are scattered over the remaining counties of the peninsula. The cheese makers of the w est are combined into a Western Ontario Dairyman's Association, which meets annually to discuss improvements in dairying. Mr Thomas Ballantyne, M.P., of Stratford, is the leading spirit in this Association. In Eastern Ontario —a district well adapted for dairying — a similar association exists, and hundreds of factories. The Eastern townships and the counties of Beauharnois, Chateauguay, and Huntingdon are also thickly studded with factories. In the neighbourhood of Montreal alone 200 factories have been erected this year. In Glengary and the east generally the cheese industry has, as here, raised the price of land, and materially improved the condition of the farmers. The magnitude of the export of cheese to Britain may be, imagined when last year the exports exceeded 40,000,000 lbs., or noarly a quarter as much as the whole export of' the United States. This year there has been a further increase, and next year it is expected 60,000,000 lbs., valued at about §5,000,000, will leave Canada for Britain.!

Fkxdkrsox says he wishes he was a rumor, for a rumour soon gains currency, and that he lias never been able to do.