402 AGRICULTURAL REPORT. 



feel, and by the general appearance and elasticity of the curd when a handful 

 is taken and squeezed. If the particles fall apart readily when the hand opens, 

 it is considered done ; if they adhere together, the heat is continued. But in 

 some other sections to continue the heat until the particles thus readily fiill 

 apart would be to overcook the curd and get too hard a cheese. When the 

 curd has very nearly reached the desired condition, the strainer is inserted at 

 the corner of the vat, the cork withdrawn, and the whey rapidly runs off, and 

 may be conducted by a pipe beneath the floor to the whey tub in another 

 building. The vat is then tipped up a little, the curd drawn to the higher end, 

 and when sufficiently drained the salt is added and evenly worked through 

 the whole mass. The proportion of salt used varies somewhat. In making 

 Cheddar cheese in England it is usually one pound to fifty-six of curd. In 

 Herkimer county it is usually from two and a half to two and three-quarters 

 to every hundred pounds of curd. The more salt is used the slower will be 

 the ripening, and the longer the cheese will keep. Care should be given to 

 use only the purest and best salt to be obtained. 



Another method of salting, introduced by Mr. De Angelis, of Holland 

 Patent, New York, deserves mention. It is by dissolving the salt in the whey 

 before being drawn off, or rather when only partially drawn off, so that the 

 salt may penetrate the particles of curd without friction. This tends to secure 

 a more even distribution of the salt, and also a richer product, by saving more 

 or less butter and curd, which, being crushed and liberated by contact with 

 Ae sharp-edged particles of salt in the ordinary method of mixing, escape with 

 the latter portion of the whey as it passes off. It has the disadvantage of re- 

 quiring more salt than is taken up by the curd, a considerable portion being 

 left in the whey, and also of uncertainty in the amount taken up by the curd. 

 If the latter objection can be successfully obviated in practice, its advantages 

 would probably more than compensate for the additional salt required. The 

 curd, when salted, is to be dipped into the hoop, in which a cloth is first laid, 

 and put to press. Its temperature when it goes into the hoop may be from 

 60° to 65°. An error of some dairymen is to cool the curd by means of cold 

 water or M'hey, which impoverishes the cheese by washing out some of its 

 richness. A far better method is by stirring and exposure to the air, which, 

 while it cools, imparts a fine color also. It is not as well known as it should 

 be, that exposure to the air heightens the color of cooked curd, and by con- 

 tinued exposure before, during, and after salting, before putting to press, a 

 light golden or rich cream color, which is really the most desirable shade, may 

 be obtained without the addition of any foreign substance. When put to 

 press it is well that the pressure be gentle at first, but in a few minutes it may 

 be very considerably increased — say to half a ton or more if it be a large 

 cheese ; for curd properly cooked is not only already rid of much of the whey 

 which by other methods of manufacture must be worked out, pressed out, or 

 dried out, but the curd and butter are so thoroughly combined and compacted 

 together that comparatively little danger exists of loss by reason of the escape 

 of either with the whey. The separation of the whey in well-cooked curd is 

 80 complete that little remains for the press to accomplish beyond the removal 

 of the moisture which adheres to the outside of the particles, and to compact 

 them together into the form desired for the cheese. So complete is the sepa- 

 ration that frequently not more than two quarts of whey can be obtained under 

 the press from a cheese of a hundred and twenty pounds. 



Thus treated, the curd retains all its natural richness, and the cheese has a 

 sweet, nutty, new-milk flavor peculiar to this process. The cooking seems 

 also to be equivalent to a portion of the curing process needful when made by 

 other methods ; for we find, when made from curd properly cooked, cheese 

 will ripen with greater facility than by the modes formerly in use. After re- 

 maining in press two or three hours the cheese may be removed, the edges 



