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lative grant in the County. Soon after coming to Dereham Township, Mr. Ranney purchased fifty acres of land and began making a home for his family. They kept adding to this fifty acres until they owned a block of seven hundred acres. In 1842 Lydia gave up teaching and began making cheese in a lean-to on the back of their plank house. She kept three cows in front of the house and she did the milking and cheese-making herself while Hiram farmed. This was the first cheddar cheese made in Canada. As the business became more and more profitable, Lydia making the cheese and Hiram transporting it to markets in the county and to London, they increased their herd to one hundred cows. The rapid increase in their herd required more help so she offered to teach cheese-making to young people of the area. At one time she had fourteen milk maids learning to make cheese. Making cheese was not an all-day operation so the Ranneys started a herd of sheep and when the girls were not milking or making cheese, Lydia taught them to spin and weave the sheep's wool. Soon they took young men as well as girls into their home to learn cheese-making. One of the most successful of these yas James Harris who later married the Ranney's daughter Julia. Another famous cheese-maker, Harvey Farrington, also became part of the Ranney family when he married the widow of their son Hiram. Harvey Farrington settled near Norwich, Ontario, and in 1863 he established the first cheese factory in the country. Two years later the first Ingersoll factory was built by James Harris. It was in his factory that the first mammoth