DAIRY HUSBANDRY. 355 



two countries, is certainly one of great importance to the Amer 

 ican dairymen. 



He advises, in the first place, that the calf from which the 

 rennet is to be taken should not be allowed to suck on the day 

 on which it is killed. The office of the rennet, or stomach of 

 the calf, is, to supply the gastric juice by which the curdling of 

 the milk is effected. If it has recently performed that office, it 

 will have become to a degree exhausted of its strength. Too 

 much rennet should not be applied. Dairymaids, in general, are 

 anxious to have the curd &quot; come soon,&quot; and so apply an exces 

 sive quantity, to which he thinks much of the acrid taste of the 

 cheese is owing. Only so much should be used as will produce 

 the effect in about fifty minutes. For the reason above given, 

 the rennet should not, he says, be washed in water when taken 

 from the calf, as it exhausts its strength, but simply salted or 

 dried in the usual way, or otherwise preserved in pickle. 



When any cream is taken from the milk to be made into 

 butter, the buttermilk should be returned to the milk of which 

 the cheese is to be made. The greatest care should be taken in 

 separating the whey from the cheese. When the pressure or 

 handling is too severe, the whey that runs from the curd will 

 appear of a white color. This is owing to its carrying off with 

 it the small creamy particles of the cheese, which are, in fact, 

 the richest part of it. After the curd is cut or broken, therefore, 

 and not squeezed with the hand, and all the whey is allowed to 

 separate from it that can be easily removed, the curd should be 

 taken out of the tub with the greatest care, and laid upon a 

 coarse cloth attached to a frame like a sieve, and there suffered 

 to drain until it becomes quite dry and mealy, before being put 

 into the press. The object of pressing should be, not to express 

 the whey, but to consolidate the cheese. There should be no 

 aim to make whey butter. All the butter extracted from the 

 whey is so much of the proper richness taken from the. cheese. 

 These suggestions seem to me reasonable and valuable. I 

 should be glad if our farmers could send the English even a 

 much better article than that which they produce themselves. 

 I should be glad to overcome every prejudice, on whichever side 

 of the water it might be found, and transform the union of 

 mutual trade into a perfect union of mutual good-will, between 



