256 CHESHIRE CHEESE. 



in some of the best of the dairies of New England and 

 New York correspond in a remarkable degree with the 

 mode of making Cheddar and Cheshire cheese, both 

 celebrated for their richness and popularity in the mar- 

 ket. Of the latter there are made, it is said, over 

 twelve thousand tons annually; Cheshire taking the 

 lead in cheese-making, and keeping about forty thousand 

 cows. 



Cheshire Cheese is remarkable for its uniformity, 

 being, in dairies of the best repute, made by fixed rules, 

 and usually by the same persons. If the number of 

 cows is sufficient to make a cheese from one meal, that 

 amount is used ; if not, two meals are united. The 

 cows are milked at six o'clock, morning and evening ; 

 are kept on rich pastures, and never driven far, great 

 care being taken that nothing shall interfere with the 

 regularity with which every operation connected with 

 this chief source of the wealth and prosperity of the 

 Cheshire farmer is conducted. The milk is brought in 

 large wooden pails into the milk-house, which it is gen- 

 erally contrived shall have a cool north aspect, and 

 immediately strained into pans, and placed upon the 

 floor of the dairy. Each pan is about six inches in 

 depth, and usually made of block-tin. This substance 

 is objected to by some because it is liable, like 

 every other metal, although, perhaps, in a less degree 

 than either zinc or lead, to be acted upon by the lactic 

 acid, and so produce compounds of a deleterious char- 

 acter. At six o'clock in the morning the cheese-ladder 

 is put on the cheese-tub, the whole of the night's milk 

 is again passed through the sieve, and the morning's 

 milk is then poured upon it, and well agitated to equal- 

 ize the temperature ; in cold weather a pan of hot water 

 is previously put into the tub, to increase the temper- 

 ature of the previous night's meal. 



