MANUFACTURE OF CHEESE. 415 



for months together on whey alone, as Ls sometimes done in cheese districts, 

 the meat may be depended upon as particularly unwholesome, and is especially 

 to be avoided. Fed, however, in connexion with bran or shorts, Indian meal 

 or buckwheat meal, whey serves an excellent purpose for swine, and adds con- 

 siderably to the dairyman's income. 



But when the milk of a neighborhood is carried to a common centre within 

 a circle the radius of which is three or four miles, the question how to dispose 

 of the whey profitably assumes a different aspect. When cheese factories were 

 first started great anticipations of profit from pork to be made of whey were 

 indulged in. These anticipations have not been realized. Sometimes the 

 owner of a factory purchased and kept hogs on his own account ; sometimes he 

 took them in to board for a York shilling per week ; but rarely have the re- 

 sults giv^en much satisfaction. In either case the large piggery near by wai} a 

 nuisance from its exhalation of odors so readily absorbed by milk and so ill 

 adapted to improve the flavor of cheese. If the pigs throve well without much 

 extra feed, those who brought milk to be made up were apprehensive that too 

 much butter and curd escaped with the whey and was lost to the weight of the 

 finished product. If meal or other food was given in suflScient quantity to 

 keep them in healthy condition, the cost materially reduced the amount re- 

 ceived for the pork. In some cases, where clear whey has been fed without 

 much other food, the swine have died off by scores, the owners supposing this 

 result due to some new disease of doubtful origin, when, in fact, it was merely 

 from starvation, or what is equivalent to it, namely, food abundant in supply, 

 but deficient in those nutritious properties which, from the nature of the case, 

 are indispensable. Whole milk is probably nearer than any other known sub- 

 stance to a perfect food, but when its oil and its casein have been removed it 

 is a very different article, and a very imperfect food. 



In order to understand better the problem of utilizing the whey of cheese 

 factories, let us inquire more particularly what whey is. 



When rennet is added to milk its casein is coagulated and a curd formed. 

 This curd holds the oil globules or butter of milk with it mechanically. If the 

 subsequent operations are conducted with care, the whey contains just what the 

 milk did, minus the butter and casein, or nearly all of it, and the whey is 

 bright and clear, but usually more or less of both butter and casein escape into 

 the whey, which is thus rendered turbid. With the average management m 

 what are deemed good dairies I suppose a tenth of the butter and casein of milk are 

 lost in the whey, and there are dairies where a much larger proportion escapes. 



One reason why the whey of factories has been no more satisfactory as a 

 feeding material may be that it contains less cheese. Whey contains the so- 

 luble salts of milk, that Avhich appears as ash when milk is dried and burned. 

 This amounts usually to from six to eight tenths of one per cent., about half 

 of which is phosphate of lime. A careful analysis of five samples of whey, re- 

 sulting from a careful manufacture of cheese, gave an average result as follows: 



Water 93.12 



Butter 35 



Casein 47 



Albumen .38 



Milk sugar 4.54 



Lactic acid .45 



Ash 69 



100 GO 



Can whey be utilized, or at least the milk sugar which it contains 1 Sup- 

 pose only thirty factories to have been in operation during the past year; 



