The Baking Society had now entered on a period of extraordinary development. Department was added to department and extension followed extension with marvellous rapidity. It seemed, indeed, as if the spirit of Co-operation had only been waiting for a suitable habitation in order to show the great things of which it was capable. In the six years—1888–1894—the output of the Society rose from 466 sacks per week to 1,254, and the number of departments in the bakery from two to seven, while tearooms had been opened, a purveying department was being carried on, and a workshops and trades department was in operation. The sales for the 77th quarter were £12,438; by the end of the year they were £16,490, and by the 88th, which, however, was a fourteen week quarter, they were £27,210. The trade had more than doubled in three years. In the same period the membership, which had been thirty-six societies at the end of the 77th quarter, had grown to forty-six at the end of the 88th. Before the Society had been six months installed in M‘Neil Street the committee were beginning to have visions of congestion such as they had experienced in St James Street, unless they took time by the forelock and made arrangements which would enable them to grapple with their ever-increasing trade before it again overwhelmed them. The first business they decided to tackle was that of erecting a biscuit factory, where they could produce fancy biscuits of all kinds. Hitherto they had been getting such biscuits as they were able to sell from a firm of manufacturers in the city, and were having them invoiced through the S.C.W.S. Investigation showed that this mode of procedure was one which was not profitable to the Society, but, at the time when the investigation was made, the directors were not in a position to do anything; and when they secured the ground on which to build their new factory the congestion in their bread department made instant provision for that department the premier necessity. But now that they had the bread difficulty settled for a short time they turned their attention to the question of biscuits. Provision had been made in the new building for a travelling oven, but its installation had been held over while the more important work was being carried out. Early in 1888, however, it was decided to purchase a biscuit cutting machine, and one similar to the working model which was being shown in Glasgow Exhibition was ordered, at a cost of £258. They did not act without caution, however, for before the machine was purchased they wrote to the manager of Crumpsall bakery for his opinion of the biscuit machines made by the firm from which they proposed to purchase. With the object of ensuring that everything possible would be done to promote the sale of the biscuits when they were made, the committee also approached the directors of the Wholesale Society as to the likelihood of that federation becoming agent for the U.C.B.S. in the biscuit trade. They