208 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE. 



several dairies wliere tliey live on the same road. Wliere self- 

 heating vats are used, a building one hundred by thirty feet, 

 two stories high, is sufficient for five hundred cows. A good 

 frame, double boarded, matched or battened, is sufficient for all 

 purposes. The expense of such a building, witli all the fixings 

 required, would be about twenty-five hundred dollars. Proba- 

 bly the best vats made for either factory or private dairies, are 

 the Oneida, manufactured by Wm. Ralph & Co., Utica, N. Y. 



An experienced cheese-maker is necessary for the successful 

 management of a factory, and no one should ever undertake to 

 manage a factory who has not served a faithful apprenticeship. 

 Rules may guide, but experience and good judgment are neces- 

 sary to manufacture a uniform and good dairy of cheese, be it 

 a factory or private dairy. In the first place, everything in and 

 around the establishment should be scrupulously clean. Tubs 

 should be entirely discarded, and tin vats used. 



Milk is composed principally of cream, caseine and water, or 

 whey, and to make a good cheese the cream and caseine sliould 

 be united and entirely separated from the whey, consequently 

 whole milk should be used ; and a good rich cheese cannot be 

 made where any considerable portion of the cream has been 

 removed from the milk. 



In making cheese, the night's milk should be strained into 

 the vat and cooled to about sixty-eight degrees. What cream 

 arises during the night sliould be skimmed off and placed in the 

 strainer, and the morning's milk strained through it, which 

 will warm it sufficiently to incorporate it with the milk, and the 

 whole warmed to eighty-two degrees. It is very important to 

 use good sweet rennet, which is prepared as follows : The calf 

 should be at least four days old, and killed ten or twelve hours 

 after sucking the cow ; the curd and everything unclean care- 

 fully removed, the rennet well salted and dried in a warm place. 

 A clean jar or cask should be used for preparing the liquid for 

 use, and for every hundred cows prepare from four to six 

 rennets ; add one gallon of water, which has been boiled, to 

 every two rennets, and more rock salt than the water will 

 dissolve ; let it stand, rubbing the rennet occasionally with the 

 hands, and stirring every day for several days, when it will be 

 fit for use. It should be of sufficient strength for one common 

 teacupful to curdle sixty gallons of milk. Some use whey 



