SOIL AND CLIMATE IN CHEESE-MAKING. 169 



CHAPTER XX. 



THE CHESHIRE CHEESE DISTRICT AND ENGLISH HUSBANDRY UPON HEAVY 

 SOILS. PASTURES. THEIR PERMANENCE. THE USE OF BONES AS A MA 

 NURE IN CHESHIRE. A VALUABLE REMARK TO OWNERS OF IMPROVED 



NEAT STOCK. BREEDS OF DAIRY STOCK. HORSES. 



soil of a considerable part of this county being a 

 tenacious clay, favourable to the growth of grasses, and 

 difficult of tillage, its inhabitants are naturally dairy-men, 

 and it has been particularly distinguished for many centuries 

 for its manufacture of cheese. Its distinction in this respect 

 does not appear to be the result of remarkable skill or pecu 

 liar dairy processes, but is probably due to the particular 

 varieties of herbage, to the natural productions of which, the 

 properties of its soil, and perhaps of its climate, are peculiarly 

 favourable.* 



The grounds for this conclusion are the general value 

 placed by the farmers upon their old pastures, where the 

 natural assortment of herbage may be considered to have 

 entirely obtained and taken the place of the limited number 

 of varieties which are artificially sowed, the fact that the 

 butter of the district is not, as a general rule, highly esteemed, 



* The best cheese is made on cold, stiff, clay-soils (but not on the 

 purest clays), and from the most natural herbage, even from weedy, sterile 

 pastures ; but much the largest quantity is made from an equal extent of 

 nore moderately tenacious and drained or permeable soils spontaneously 

 producing close, luxuriant, fine (not rank) grasses and white clover. 



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