390 MODERN FARRIER. 



many to be the best in point of flavour of any we 

 have. The season for making their thin or single 

 cheese is mostly from April to November ; but the 

 principal season for the thick or double is confined 

 to May, June, and the early part of July. This is 

 the busy season in the dairy; for at an earlier period 

 the milk is not rich enough ; and if the cheeses be 

 made later in the summer, they do not acquire suf- 

 ficient firmness to be marketable next spring. A^ery 

 good cheese, however, can be made even in winter, 

 from cows that are well-fed. In this country, as well 

 as in Wiltshire and some others, they milk their 

 cows in summer at a very early hour : generally by 

 four o'clock in the morning, before the day becomes 

 warm, and the animals restless and unruly. 



59. Chester Cheese. 



In Cheshire, where they make cheeses of the 

 largest size (60 or 100 pounds), they milk their 

 cows in summer at six o'clock morning and even- 

 ing; but in winter, at day-light in the morning, 

 and just before dark in the evening. After the milk 

 has been strained to free it from any impurities 

 it may have caught during- the milking, it is con- 

 veyed into a cooler placed upon feet like a table. 

 This is a leaden cistern, nuie inches deep, five feet 

 long, and two and a half wide, with a cock or spigot 

 at the bottom for drawing off the milk. This, when ' 

 sufficiently cooled, is drawn off into pans, and the 

 cooler again filled. In some cases the cooler is large 

 enough to hold a whole meal's milk at once. The 

 rapid cooling thus produced (which, however, is 

 necessary only in hot weather q^nd during the sum- 

 mer season,) is found to be of essential utility in 

 retarding the process of fermentation, and thereby 

 preventing ascenscy from commencing in the milk 

 before two meals of it can be put together. Some 

 have thouficht that the cheese might be improved by 



