SWITZERLAND. 317 



Battelmatt cheese is made entirely for home consumption, as it will 

 not bear transport. It is made from fresh milk directly coagulated 

 with rennet and boiled for forty-five or fifty minutes, stirred for one- 

 quarter of an hour and then hung- up in a cloth for the whey to drip off, 

 when it is put into wooden bowls and salted daily until consumed. 



Vaclierin cheese is a kind of cream cheese, and is only made in the 

 winter, but as a smeary cheese is considerably used and is very palat- 

 able. 



Saanen is a skim-milk cheese and is so hard that it is easily grated ; 

 it is used much in soups throughout Switzerland; it is made in cakes 

 of 15 to 25 pounds. 



Urseren cheese is made mostly in the canton Uri ; the cakes weigh 

 from 50 to 60 pounds. It is also made of skim-milk. 



Bchabzieger, or Krauter cheese. This is a very important manufacture 

 in this and the southern parts of Switzerland; the number of pounds 

 made yearly is said to be several millions. 



The process of making is as follows : 



The milk is thoroughly skimmed after sitting as long as possible, 

 when it is poured into a kettle and heated up to a boiling point, and 

 about 20 per cent, of cold fresh buttermilk is added ; after which the 

 heating is continued, but not at such high pressure as before, and sour 

 whey is added and the kettle is taken from the fire. 



After it has coagulated, the curd is put in large, strong hemp sacks 

 or boxes, the bottom of which is perforated with holes, and presswi 

 with large stone weights or beam, pressure. 



The zieger then undergoes a kind of fermentation at about 62 F., 

 which lasts a month and a half or two months. If the temperature is 

 too high the sieger is apt to be readily decomposed, while if the tem- 

 perature is too low it will get blue and tough. When the zieger has 

 been put through a proper fermentation, it is put in a special mill and 

 thoroughly ground, during which proc'ess 5 per cent, of salt and 2 per 

 cent, of dried MeU-lotus ccerulea, Lam., is added. This clover gives the 

 cheese its bluish color and peculiar taste. The next process is to stamp 

 the curd into small wooden forms, lined with clo'A, which are about 5 

 or G inches high and 3 or 4 in diameter. The cheese "cures" for about 

 one year, but is frequently used after being kept in cool, dry rooms 

 for six months. The small forms are emptied by scraping with a knife- 

 When the cheese is to be eaten it is first- grated to a fine powder, and 

 either used alone on bread or mixed with butter. Skim-milk cheese is 

 sold in the markets here at G cents, and the cream cheese at about 20 

 cents per pound. Cheese factories are supplied with milk in a similar 

 manner to the condensed-milk companies, and pay about the same prices. 

 From good, rich milk 8 to 11 per cent, of crenm cheese can bo reckoned 

 to the weight of the milk. The whey of milk is still boiled down into 

 sugar in this part of Switzerland. 



The whey is boiled until only a brown sirup remains in the kettle, 

 which is poured in flat wooden dishes and left to stand for twenty-four 

 hours, when it'becomes like crystallized yellowish sand. This is washed 

 in cold water and sold for medicinal purposes. 



EXPOETS OF* SWISS CHEESE, 



The amount of cheese exported from Switzerland during the last ten 

 years is estimated as follows: 



Kilograms. 



1854 : 5,356,150 



1660 7,339,450 



