146 AN AMERICAN FARMER L\' ENGLAND. 



ficially sowed ; the fact that the butter of the district is not, as a 

 general rule, highly esteemed ; and that I cannot learn that the 

 process of cheese-making differs any more from that of other 

 districts in England or the United States, than between different 

 dairies producing cheese of equal value, in this district itself. 



It is by no means to be inferred, however, that the quality of 

 cheese is not affected by the process of manufacture. There is 

 no doubt that the skill and nicety of a superior dairy-maid will 

 produce cheese of a superior quality, on a farm of poor herbage, 

 while an ignorant and careless one will make only an inferior 

 description, no matter what the natural advantages may be. The 

 best cheese made in the United States is quite equal to the best 

 I have tasted here, but the average quality is by no means equal 

 to the average quality of Cheshire cheese. 



Superiority in the manufacture seems not to depend, however, 

 upon any describable peculiarities of the process, which differs in 

 no essential particular from that common in our dairies. Excel- 

 lence is well understood to depend greatly upon extreme clean- 

 liness in all the implements employed, and upon the purity and 

 moderate temperature of the atmosphere. Means to secure the 

 latter are used much the same as with us. Stoves and hot-water 

 pipes are sometimes employed in the cheese-room, and where this 

 is in a detached building of one story, it is considered essential 

 that it should have a thatched roof. In some cases where the 

 roof has been slated, it has been found necessary in the warmest 

 weather to remove the cheese to the cellar of the farm-house. 

 Plank shelves are more generally used, and are esteemed better 

 than stone. 



Not only is there no uniformity in the methods of the different 

 dairies, to distinguish them from those of the United States, but 

 rarely in any single dairy are there any exact rules with regard 

 to the time to be employed in any parts of the process, or as to the 



