MAY.] CHESHIRE CHEESE. 237 



by hand, and with a board at top well weigh ted, 

 and placing wooden skewers round the cbeese to 

 the centre, and drawing them out frequently, the 

 upper part of the cheese will be drained of its 

 whey ; then shift it out of the vat, first put a cloth 

 on the top of it, and reverse it on the cloth into 

 another vat, or the same, which vat should be well 

 scalded before the cheese is returned into it ; then 

 the top part is broken by hand down to the mid- 

 dle, and salt mixed with it, and skewered as before > 

 then pressed by hand, weighted, and all the whey 

 extracted. This done, reverse the cheese again 

 into another vat, warmed as before, with a cloth 

 under it ; then a tin hoop, or binder, is put round 

 the upper edge of the cheese, and within the sides 

 of the vat, the cheese being first inclosed in a 

 cloth, and the edges of it put within the vat. 



" N. B. The cloth is of fine hemp, one yard 

 and a half long by one yard wide ; it is so laid, 

 that on one side of the vat it shall be level with 

 the side of it, on the other it shall lap over the 

 whole of the cheese, and the edges put within the 

 vat, and the tin fillet to go over the whole. All the 

 above operations will take from seven in the morning 

 till one at noon. Finally, it is put into a press of 15 to 

 20 cwt. and stuck round the vat, into the cheese, 

 with thin wire skewers, which are shifted occasionally; 

 in four hours more it should be shifted and turned, 

 and in four hours more the same, and the skewering 

 continued. Next morning let it be turned by the 

 woman who attends the milk, and put under 



another 



