Abstract: For a dust-collecting plant, in which a plurality of gas streams are sucked from spaced apart dust sources and are delivered in a manifold to a dust-collecting unit and the gas is delivered by a controllable exhaust fan to an exhaust gas chimney, a method is provided wherein the automatic control and the operation of the plant are improved whereas the power requirement is minimized. A feedback control system having an individually adjustable desired value r.sub.i is associated with each gas source. An overriding feedback control system is provided for controlling the exhaust fan. The pressure drop R to be maintained by the exhaust fan is changed in dependence on the position of the final control elements associated with the several dust sources.