408 



BRITISH HUSBANDRY. 



[Cb. XXXVII. 



IMPLEMENTS. 



The utensil'^ of the dairy comprise milk-pails, shallow pans, or cooling 

 dishes for holding-, and sieves for straining the milk when taken from the 

 cow; with dishes for skimming the cream, and churns for the making of 

 butter, besides scales, prints, and boards, for weighing, measuring, and orna- 

 menting it. There are also ladders, vats, tubs, curd-breakers, and presses, for 

 the manufacture of cheese, together with vessels large enough to hold the whey 

 or butter-milk : all of which — with the exception of some variations in the 

 construction of the churn and press — are so nearly similar throughout 

 every part of this country and Europe, and so familiar to every dairy-maid, 

 as hardly to require description. The material of which they are most 

 generally formed is wood, as objections are made to vessels of glazed 

 crockery and lead, though many dishes are made of earthenware, and some 

 of the coolers and whey-tubs are of lead, which has been used for ages 

 without any ill effect ; they are also not uncommonly found of iron tinned, 

 or of freestone, as well as of slate, which is now fast coming into use. In 

 Holland, indeed, the ])ails are not unfrequently made of brass ; but liere 

 they are almost invariably of wood, and maple is preferred, both for its 

 lightness and the neatness of its appearance. The ladders and cream- 

 dishes, together with the prints and butter-boards, are also of ma])le ; but 

 the vat in which the curd is set, and the " chessarts," or vats into which the 

 cheeses are pressed, are formed of every kind of wood, conformable to the 

 weight of the cheese, and generally made by the cooper, though some are 

 cut out of the solid, and formed of elm, and others are made of cast-iron. 

 The sieve has usually a hair-cloth bottom, though in some cases it is of 

 fine silver wire, and is about twelve or fifteen inches in diameter. 



The cheese-presses act upon the curd by pressure, and are usually made 

 of stone of different weights proportioned to the size of the cheese, and, 

 therefore, varying from 5 cwt. to 1 ton. These are most generally raised 

 by a block and tackle ; but some of them are upon the principles of the 

 lever, and there are various constructions placed in frames of wood. One 

 lately invented, and made by the Shotts Foundry, is entirely of iron, of a 

 simple construction, the pressure upon the curd being made by a screw 

 turned by a winch, by which means the power can be regulated more cor- 

 rectly than by a fixed weight*. A very common machine, of an extremely 

 simple form, used in many dairies wliich produce such small cheeses as 

 not to require great pressure, is also that of a moveable beam, fixed by a 

 ])ivot in an upright post, and having hooked on at the other end a weight 

 which presses in this manner on the cheese- vats underneath. 



* For a plate and description of this press, see the Trans, of the Highland Soc. N. S, 

 vol, iv. p. 5'-', 



