THE FARMER'S MAGAZINE. 



475 



BfeEF, BUTTER, AND CHEESE. 



How can we make more butter? is what they have 

 just been considering in Ayrshire. How we may make 

 better cheese is what they have been talking of in 

 Hanover-square ; and how wc shall increase the sup- 

 ply of meat is what they have been discussing at the 

 Central Club in Bridge-street. These three meetings 

 have come appropriately enough within a week of each 

 other, at a time when such topics are all alike especial 

 objects of interest. They range high, with a still growing 

 demand; and people who begin to despair of making 

 their way with corn crops, aie coming to look more 

 directly to the pastures and the dairy. We are en- 

 abled in another page to report and deduce on the 

 meeting in the North. As usual, we can give the 

 Farmers' Club proceedings in full ; but with the 

 lecture in Hanover-square we can take no such liberty. 

 No sooner had Professor Voelcker delivered it, than 

 Mr. Thompson, on the ])art of the Journal Committee, 

 rose, with some evident anxiety, to enter a protest 

 against the publication of Professor Simonds' address 

 being regarded as a precedent. The proper and only 

 place for the appearance of these lectures was in the 

 pages of the Journal, and such a right must not be 

 anticipated. 



Whatever may come of this protest hereafter, it was 

 in the present case one of no great moment. Professor 

 Voelcker's speech on the manufacture of cheese was in 

 a great degree but an introduction ; or, as he himself 

 admitted, altogether incomplete, without another morn- 

 ing or two devoted to the same theme. Hence its pub- 

 lication might be premature ; although we may ven- 

 ture to glance at the manner in which the art is so far 

 treated by science, as in contradistinction to practice. 

 We may say, then, at once that the subject was very ably 

 handled — clearly, with great care and research, accom- 

 panied with a certain degree of boldness when the lec- 

 turer's own opinions ran counter to those that long- 

 usage has stamped with its imprimatur. Never offen- 

 sively or derisively put, as is too commonly the case 

 when the student comes to criticise the workman, Mr. 

 Voelcker's own confidence found a ready sympathy 

 with his audience ; and rarely have new theories been 

 more reasonably offered, or better received. 



The opening fact was a suggestive one, as showing 

 how greatly some further aid and advice was required, 

 The manufacture of cheese, or, ergo, cheese itself, is not 

 so good now as it was five-and-twenty years since. 

 And the Professor attributes this decline not to the use 

 of bones nor the decay of our pastures, but to the echo 

 of a want we have uttered — that of a good dairy- 

 maid. In days gone by the farmer's wife herself, if not, 

 as she frequently was, her own dairy-woman, had still 

 an especial pride in its management. Now, however, 

 she leaves such a part of the business of the farm more 

 and more to her servants, and, as a consequence, with 

 less care and cleanliness in its conduct. And cleanliness 

 is above all things the first great golden rule of the art. 

 The Professor dwelt on this at some length, demonstrat- 

 ing how the cheese might be utterly spoiled even before 

 it was made — how painted pans and tubs should be 

 avoided, as not to be trusted when washed with 

 scalding water — though they do paint them in 

 Cheshire — and so on. Then ignorance is often asso- 

 ciated with idleness, while even where good cheese is 

 yet manufactured the dairywoman will be able to offer 

 but little showing for what she does. Happy accident 



or established habit are her great landmarks; and it is 

 here science tells very effectively in demonstrating direc- 

 tions for difference of temperature under different cir- 

 cumstances — preventives against cheese becoming sour 

 — how it should be coioui-ed — and other points that 

 the Professor will put in his own way. We may, 

 however, venture to give some of the different degrees 

 of tem])eratui"e, as laid down with ail the distinct em- 

 phasis of line and rule : — At below 70* the curd re- 

 mains soft and tender, at GO'' it takes 3 hours to rise, 

 at 65'^ 2 hours, at from 70'^ to 72^ ^ to f of an hour, 

 at 90" a \ of an hour— at ISO** it runs " like toasted 

 cheese." Thin cheese 5s spoiled at a high tempe- 

 rature ; and, in Cheddar cheese the curd rises at the 

 temperature of 80" to 84". After the whey is sepa- 

 rated you may raise the temperature from 95" to 100°, 

 but not higher. Milk coagulates at any temperature, 

 from GO" to 130", but at 135" it ceasts. Mr. Voelcker 

 illustrated his discourse with a number of useful 

 tables, showing the composition of different sorts of 

 cheese, that no doubt will be published with the 

 paper ; while he was continually sending round sam- 

 ples of strong and mild, old and new, good and 

 bad, for the yet more practical ordeal of touch, 

 taste, and smell. But, alas for such advan- 

 tages ! there were scarcely twenty people present, 

 and the majority of these were lords and landlords 

 who had come on the business of an adjourned Council 

 Meeting. But, we may add, lor the benefit of the 

 outside world, on the authority of Professor Voelcker, 

 that it is a mistake to suppose cheese will only "grow" 

 in certain places ; it may, on the contrary, be made on 

 any description of land. — That for such a purpose bones 

 improve all lands. — That food does not influence the 

 flavour of the cheese so much as the different systems 

 of manipulation. — That milk varies greatly in analysis, 

 while it soon becomes tainted when the dairy is placed 

 near to drains, pig-styes, or cesspools, and that cheese- 

 making under such circumstances is labour lost. — That 

 milk should not be " soured" before the process of 

 cheese-making begins, and that acidometers are of 

 little use. — That the Cheshire plan of making the 

 rennet day by day is not necessary, and the custom 

 of the same district of keeping the cheese-room dark, 

 close, and confined, is altogether reprehensible. The 

 store-house must be thoroughly well ventilated, or the 

 quality of the cheese must suffer. It is a wholesome 

 sign to see a thinking and a careful man like the Pro- 

 fessor attacking mos pro lege as strongly as we have 

 intimated. 



At the next meeting we are promised something 

 under the equally important heads of " food for dairy 

 cattle," and " the best breeds for dairy purposes." But 

 here Mr. Voelcker allowed he was not so well armed, 

 at least not when at home. " At Cirencester our stock 

 are too ivcll bred to give much milk : the mongrels are 

 the best for that;" and hence his experiments upon 

 the herd have not been very encouraging. This 

 forcibly reminds one of the capital story of the tenant of 

 the late Lord Leicester had, in compliance with the wish 

 of his landlord, himself partial to the North Devons, 

 obtained a dairy of cows of that breed of the purest type. 

 The then Mr. Coke was so proud of these that he 

 frequently took his friends staying at Holkham to view 

 them. On one occasion he went with a nobleman, 

 who, after seeing and duly admiring the stock, thus ad- 



