80 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



shortened, nor the process in any way hurried, without damage to 

 the product. But with a good vat and other suitable conveniences 

 no more time is required, and it is but little more work to make up 

 the milk of fifty cows than of five. The universal testimony of 

 dairy women in all the cheese dairying districts I have visited is 

 that it is much less labor to make cheese than to make butter, and 

 this is alleged as a strong reason for their preference. Turning 

 the cheese, in the curing room, is heavy work, especially if they are 

 very large. This is properly men's work, and not woman's, who- 

 ever may do the rest. I have been equally surprised and amused 

 to witness the adroitness and ease M'ith which Herkimer county 

 dairymen do this. Cheeses of a hundred to a hundred and fifty 

 pounds weight are " whopped " over as quickly and with as much 

 apparent ease as one would turn a biscuit. The}'' certainly have 

 the knack of it. In a note from Dr. E. Holmes he remarks : 



" One of the severe labors in making cheese is the turning them over, every 

 day, in order to rub and grease them, as the custom is, while curing. To lift 

 a heavy cheese out at arms length and turn it over is rather a hard strain on 

 the muscles, especially tliose of women. I have seen cuts of a contrivance 

 ■whereby a whole cupboard full of them was turned over, cupboard and all ; 

 but this is rather unwieldy, and requires much room for the cupboard to turn 

 over. It occurred to me that a machine might be made to receive and turn a 

 single cheese at a time, and not take up much room. My plan was to have a 

 large cheese room, with a suite of tables around it. The machine was just as 

 high as the tables, and is furnished with castors so as to l)e pushed easily along 

 the alleys. It was brought along aside the cheese, the lid lifted, the cheese 

 slipped on, turned, rubbed and slipped back on to the table. The machine 

 was then slid along to the next one. Thus any number of cheeses, big or lit- 

 tle, thick or thin, might be manipulated l)y even a small girl, tiiere being; no 

 hard lifting required. The machine works first rate ; but as we do not keep 

 cows enough to make cheese on a large scale, we make butter principally, and 

 do not use the machine much." 



In this connection we are naturally led to the inquiry, what 

 number of cows can be kept on a cheese dair}'^ farm to best advan- 

 tage ? or perhaps a more pertinent one would be, how few will 

 serve a profitable use for this purpose ? And although it is evident 

 that no definite answer can be given, because so much depends on 

 many varying circumstances, I will venture a sort of general opin- 

 ion that to make a profitable and satisfactory business of it, a lead- 

 ing pursuit, the source of income from a farm of from one hun- 

 dred and fifty to two hundred acres, that fifteen or twenty is as 

 small a number as would be advisable, and that fort}' would be 

 much better. So far as the labor of making the cheese is con- 

 cerned, the milk of forty or fifty cows can be managed with about 

 the same labor as that of a smaller number; while the additional 



