CATTLE DAIRY HUSBANDRY. 



as quickly as possible, the action being regular ; 

 and the churn should be warmed, to raise the 

 temperature of the milk or cream. The air which 

 is generated in the churn should be allowed to 

 escape, or it will impede the process by the froth 

 which it creates. After the butter is formed, it 

 should remain in the churn to cool for one hour in 

 summer. 



After the churning is performed, the butter 

 should be washed with cold spring-water, with a 

 little salt added, the water being changed two or 

 three times, to extract all the milk which may be 

 lodging in the mass. 



Butter-milk. 



This is the liquid which remains after removing 

 the butter. If milk has been employed for churn- 

 ing, the butter-milk is inferior to that from cream. 

 Good butter-milk is exceedingly wholesome and 

 nutritious. In Ireland, it is largely used at meals 

 with potatoes ; in Scotland, it is more frequently 

 partaken of with oatmeal porridge. For this 

 purpose, large quantities are brought to Glasgow, 

 Edinburgh, and other towns, from the adjoining 

 rural districts. In England, the butter-milk of 

 farmers is usually employed in feeding pigs. In 

 some districts, skim-milk is also given to pigs. 

 Latterly, butter-milk has been used in conjunction 

 with carbonate of soda in the preparation of a 

 light and wholesome household bread. In the 

 west of Scotland, a kind of cheese is prepared 

 from the butter-milk. 



Cheese. 



Cheese may be made from cream alone, or from 

 the whole milk; also from skim-milk and from 

 butter-milk: the process consists in separating 

 the serum from the other materials. This is 

 effected by curdling the cream or milk by the 

 infusion of an acid, the refuse being the serum or 

 whey, which is of little value. No acidulous 

 substance is found so suitable for curdling milk as 

 rennet, which is formed of the stomach of a calf 

 that has been fed on milk. Some persons pre- 

 serve the maws or stomach-bags of calves with 

 the curd contained in them ; others employ the 

 stomach-bags alone, putting a few handfuls of 

 salt into and around them. They are then rolled 

 up, and hung in a warm place to dry, and are 

 kept for some time before they are used. The 

 stomach is not made use of in Gloucestershire 

 until it is a twelvemonth old ; for, if used before 

 this, it is said to swell the cheese, making it full 

 of eyes or holes. The usual way of preparing the 

 rennet in England is to add to every six skins or 

 stomachs two gallons of brine, and two lemons, 

 which take away any unpleasant taste, and give 

 the rennet an agreeable flavour. A large quantity 

 is made at a time ; and it is never used until it 

 has stood at least two months. In Cheshire the 

 rennet is prepared every morning; a portion of 

 the vel or stomach is cut off, and put into hot 

 water; after it remains some time, the liquid is 

 added to the milk. A portion equal in size to a 

 half-penny will curd the milk of thirty to forty 

 cows. Rennet so obtained does not impart any 

 disagreeable taste to the cheese. Rennet prepared 

 by the more common method, generally gives an 

 unpleasant taste. Almost every dairy county has 

 its own particular method of steeping and salting 

 the maws and preparing the rennet. 



Whey. 



Whey, or the thin watery serum of milk, is of a 

 pale-greenish hue,~ and forms an agreeable beve- 

 rage. Some dairy-farmers in England are in the 

 habit of extracting a little butter from it In 

 Scotland, whey is used in making oatmeal por- 

 ridge ; and a saving of nearly one-third of meal is 

 effected when the porridge is made of whey 

 instead of water. By boiling, float-whey, as it is 

 called, is obtained, which, when mixed with a 

 little sweet milk, is thought little inferior to curd. 

 Whey is valuable in feeding swine. Sugar is 

 prepared from whey. The production of crystal- 

 lised milk-sugar is chiefly confined to Switzerland. 

 It is sold in thick crystalline crusts ; colour, yellow 

 and yellow-brown. The production is limited, 

 and does not compete with sugar from the cane or 

 beet-root, 



Cheshire Cheese. It has been remarked, that 

 although good imitations of the cheese made in 

 the English counties have been produced else- 

 where, yet cheese possessing the true Cheshire 

 flavour is exceptional. This is attributed to the 

 abundance of saline particles in the soil. Cheshire 

 is almost entirely a dairy county. In making the 

 cheese, the practice followed is to set the evening's 

 milk apart till the following morning, when the 

 cream is skimmed off, and two or three gallons of 

 the skimmed-milk is put into a vessel, which is 

 immediately placed in hot water, and rendered 

 scalding hot. Half of the milk thus heated is 

 poured upon the night's milk, and the other hah* 

 mixed with the cream. The morning's milk is 

 added to that of the previous evening, and the 

 rennet and colouring being then put into the tub, 

 the whole is well stirred, and a wooden cover put 

 over the tub. 



When the curd is formed, it is cut with the 

 cheese-knife, making the incisions about an inch 

 distant from each other ; the whey is removed as 

 it collects on the surface. The curd is then 

 broken by the dairy-woman, until every part of it 

 is made as small as possible, about forty minutes 

 being generally spent in this process, when the 

 curd is left about half an hour to subside, covered 

 over with a cloth. After this, the curd is put in a 

 favourable position in the tub to drain ; after 

 which it is cut into pieces, and pressed both with 

 the hand and a weight, so long as the whey con- 

 tinues to flow. 



The curd is now broken very small, and salted. 

 As soon as the curd adheres together, a weight is 

 put upon it, and several iron skewers are stuck 

 through it by holes in the sides of the vat These 

 holes are made In order to allow any whey to 

 escape. The curd is afterwards broken as small 

 as possible. The pressing and skewering are 

 again repeated. When no more whey can be 

 extracted, the curd is turned in the vat, and 

 rinsed in warm whey. The cheese is next put 

 into the press, skewered with strong wires, eighteen 

 or twenty inches long, and sharp at the points. 

 The vat is furnished with holes on the sides to 

 receive the skewers. After being about half an 

 hour in the press, the cheese is turned several 

 times, and each time supplied with a dry cloth. 

 It remains in the press for forty-eight hours, 

 and then the cheese is put mid-deep into salt, its 

 top covered with salt, where it remains for three 

 days, its position being reversed each day. When 



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