MANUFACTURE OF CHEESE. 395 



tho practical hand ; aud doubtless tliey bouestly believe these to be sufficient, 

 and may ridicule the use of scientific instruments to detenninc so simple a 

 matter. But the truth is, that feelings, though very useful in their place, are 

 not to be depended on to determine temperature. Our bodies arc constantly 

 aifected by too many disturbing causes to afford a reliable index to slight dif- 

 ferences. Tell a man when suffering from fever and ague that he is no warmer 

 now, when seeming to be on fire, than he was a little while ago when shivering 

 under a heap of blankets, and, unless he is assured of the f;ict by other evidences 

 than his ow^n sensations, he will believe you to be laboring under an egregious 

 mistake. He may very likely take you for a fool, and perhaps exclaim, " L)on't 

 I know when I am burning and when I am freezing?" and yet the fact is as 

 you stated to him, and easily demonstrable by the introduction of the bulb of a 

 thei'mometer beneath the tongue or under the armpit. A very simple experi- 

 ment will satisfy any one that the sensation of cold or heat is not alv.'ays, even 

 when in perfect health, in consonance Avith the fact. Take two basins partly 

 filled with water, one as hot as you can comfortably bear, and the other as cold. 

 Plunge a hand in each, and after a little while pour one into the other, and put 

 both hands in it ; one hand says the mixture is cold, and the other says it is 

 warm. No ; if you desire a good product uniformly, and not merely occasion- 

 ally, there is no other way but to use the proper means, to wit, the employment 

 of an instrument acting by expansion and contraction in accordance w-ith a fixed 

 law, undisturbed by any of the many causes which affect living bodies. 



How shall the desired temperature be attained 1 By heating, of course. 

 But the way of doing this may affect the product. Milk should not be heated 

 by the direct action of fire upon the vessel containing it. If a tub is used, the 

 common method has been by warming the milk in a tin pail or other vessel set 

 into a larger one of water to which heat has been applied. If this method is 

 adopted the whole milk should be warmed, as if only a portion is heated, and 

 that sufficiently to warm the rest to a proper degree, there is some danger that 

 some of the buttery portion will rise as oil and escape with the whey. If a 

 tub must be used, the better way is to introduce a tin pail of hot water into the 

 milk in the tub and gently move it about. By a similar method, namely, by 

 using a pail of ice-water, the evening's milk may be cooled when to be kept 

 over night in a wooden cheese tub in warm weather. In this way a proper 

 temperature may be attained, and none of the milk heated too much. But the 

 best way by far is to use the improved apparatus consisting of a double vat, 

 the inner one of tin containing the milk and the outer one water, which is 

 warmed by a fire of a few chips in the heater below. There arc quite a number 

 of these, differing somewhat in construction, several of them being well adapted 

 to the purpose for which they are designed. 



Third. We come now to the means of effecting coagulation, or the precipita- 

 tion of the curd; and our first point, is, t/tat ike rennet be j^roperly prej^ared, 

 sweet and good, and tltat a svjjicient quantity, and, no more, he added to the 

 mdk. This point is of such practical moment that it is not extravagant to say 

 that scarcely one dairyman in a hundred, even in old dairying districts, realizes 

 to the full its importance. Milk can be curdled in various ways, but to make 

 good cheese rennet is indispensable. This is a preparation made of the stomach 

 of a sucking calf. It is better that the calf should be not less than four nor 

 more than ten days old. A healthy stomach when taken from the calf has a 

 clear, clean, whitish appearance; if discolored, or marked with dark spots, or 

 of a reddish cast, showing inflammation, it ought not to be used. The stomach 

 is to be emptied of its contents and cleaned without washing or scraping; 

 plentifully salted and stretched on a stick in the form of a bow. When it is 

 hung up to dry it is well to put in a little salt, but not to fill it; and care should 

 be taken not to hang it in too warm a situation. In some instances the entire 

 stock of rennets of a dairy have been rendered worthless by being dried too 



