VI PREFACE. 



to the use and employment of the bacillus lacticus as "a starter " 

 of the acidity which, in one way or another, is indispensable in 

 the production of the highest grades of cheese and butter. 

 This is the lactic acid bacterium which, in some shape or form, 

 has played an important, though ill-regulated, part in the dairy 

 of the past, and in the future will play as the one necessary 

 ferment in cheesing and buttering a still more important, 

 because well-regulated, part in the great cheeseries and cream- 

 eries which are, and are yet to be, established. 



Meanwhile, it is sufficient to call attention to the exalted 

 position which dairy farming fills to-day as compared with forty 

 years ago. In that distant period, now far astern, when there 

 was little or no sign or symptom of the advent of a huge diurnal 

 trade in country milk for the use of urban populations, the 

 pursuit of dairying was looked at somewhat in pity, if not in 

 disdain, by many-acred arable farmers who have since turned 

 their thoughts toward milk, wherever the land lent itself at all 

 conveniently to arable dairy farming. 



Many young persons of both sexes possessing talent and 

 training, have turned their attention to dairy work in recent 

 times. The Dairy Schools have done great services in dairy 

 tuition of a practical as well as a theoretical character, the 

 whole of it substantiated by scientific problems solved. The 

 agricultural press has stimulated inquiry, here, there, and 

 everywhere, into the predominant merits of dairy farming. 

 And now we find it easily at the head of all the various sections 

 into which British agriculture may be differentiated. 



Herewith I thank Professor Wallace for permission to use 

 several illustrations from his " Farm Live Stock of Great 

 Britain." 



J. PRINCE SHELDON. 



SHEEN, BUXTON, 

 January 8, 1908. 



