74 BRITISH DAIRYING. 



steadily and rapidly improving the farm. It was all the agent's 

 doing, I believe. 



The actors in this little drama in pastoral life have now all 

 gone to "the bourne from whence no traveller returns," and 

 the agitation created in the district at the time it occurred has 

 settled down, like the ripples on water into which a stone has 

 been thrown. I knew them well, all of them, for the tenant 

 and his wife, who happily for herself passed away not long 

 before the drama came, were my father and mother. 



Six to eight tons of cheese each year were made, and for close 

 on thirty years it was the wife who made it. The dairy-maid, 

 in fact, was the farmer's wife, an arrangement which was for- 

 merly, and perhaps still is, considered indispensable to a good 

 dairy of cheese. The cheese was made up fresh and sweet each 

 day that is, without any introduction of acidity and was 

 never a really first-class lot, though as carefully made as cheese 

 could be. At length one day it happened that a few pounds of 

 curd hva pan were mislaid and overlooked, and not put into 

 the cheese of the day. After a debate between husband and 

 wife as to what was the best to do, it was decided to put it into 

 one of the morrow's cheeses, mark that cheese with a penny in 

 the press, and await the result of the experiment. In course of 

 time the cheese was cut and found to be excellent that is, 

 just about perfect ! The curd that was kept had become sour 

 by the morning, and this acidity was deemed to be the one 

 thing needful to correct what was amiss with the cheese of that 

 dairy. 



From that time a portion of curd was always kept from 

 one day to another, and mixed with the next day's cheese ; the 

 result was completely satisfactory so much so, indeed, that one 

 whole season's cheese, kept till Christmas had turned, made 

 nearer ninety than eighty shillings per hundredweight ! 



Here, then, a valuable secret in the art of cheese-making was 

 in this case accidentally discovered, and the " sweet curd " sys- 

 tem was finally abandoned. Many years afterwards, when 

 inspecting the methods of cheese-making in the Fylde of Lan- 

 cashire, I found the sweet and acid curd systems side by side. 



