DAIRY PRODUCTS. 183 



The use of salt is generally well understood, but we occa- 

 sionally hear the complaint that too much salt is used, which 

 may be true. But the maker says, "Only so much salt is 

 used every day to so many pounds of milk ! " This may be 

 true and yet too much be used. It is said that salt varies in 

 strength. 



In a communication from Prof. Goessmann of the Massachu- 

 setts Agricultural College, the highest authority, perhaps, in 

 the United States in saline matters, he says that "the main 

 difference regarding the better qualities of the various brands 

 of dairy salt in our markets consists in the varying weight of 

 an equal bulk. A well-kept dairy salt must be dry and of 

 no particular odor ; the latter has nothing to do with the 

 strength of the salt. Those kinds which are made by the 

 boiling, or boiling and washing process, are lighter, conse- 

 quently more bulky, than those manufactured from the 

 heavier coarse salt, obtained by the slow process of solar 

 evaporation. A consequence of these facts is therefore the 

 rule, 'Apply dairy salt by weight and not by measure.'" The 

 above may be of value, but the cause of the trouble of which 

 we have been speaking lies in another direction. 



During the warm weather, when the thermometer is at 

 eighty or ninety degrees, or when we have a humid atmo- 

 sphere charged with electricity, or for the want of sweet uten- 

 sils, — when other or any of those unfortunate phenomena 

 exist, either avoidable or unavoidable, and your milk has 

 begun rapidly to acidulate before it is placed in the hands of 

 the cheese-maker, it must then be manipulated very rapidly 

 in order to make anything passably good from it, and at the 

 best he will do well if he makes nine-tenths as much cheese as 

 he would from good milk. Here is a loss of one-tenth, to say 

 the least, in curd, and it is difficult to tell the exact loss. 

 The curd is salted according to the rule for sweet milk ; con- 

 sequently there is one-tenth too much salt in the cheese, unless 

 the manufacturer has learned to discriminate very closely. 

 The loss of curd by poor milk, to say nothing of the quality 

 of the cheese, would go far towards paying a large factory- 

 bill. 



I believe that little need be said in this connection as to the 

 importance of good feed, and what is of equal importance, 



