108 HINTS ON DAIRYING. 



small waste. We loose all, or nearly all, of the albumen. 

 We leave in the whey most of the sugar, if we do not 

 convert it into acid before getting rid ot the whey, in 

 which case we may have an injurious amount of the acid 

 in the curd, besides dissolving and washing out nearly 

 all the ash, which is composed of phosphates, principally 

 of iron, magnesia and lime. These are changed into lac- 

 tates, leaving the phosphoric acid free- not a very uood 

 food for anything but rats. We ought to save nearly or 

 quite all the ash- the phosphates. But by the ordinary 

 process of cheese making, these are nearly all lost, as is 

 shown by the analyses of whey, which probably accounts 

 for the low estimate in the popular mind of the value of 

 cheese as food, it being rated at one-half the value that 

 it would have were the phosphates all retained. But, 

 four-fifths of the nitrogenous and muscle-making mate- 

 rial has been removed, and also nine-tenths of the fat, 

 which is heat producing and some say furnishes motor 

 power. W r e have retained in the cheese 5.84 of the 12.82 

 parts of solids, leaving 5.98 parts, 4.21 parts of which are 

 sugar and not wanted in the cheese, or, at most, only a 

 fraction of it. We leave less than one part of the albu- 

 minous and caseous matter, which is the most valuable, 

 and only one-third of one part of fat. So there is less 

 than one part of solids left besides sugar, and the rest of 

 the whey is water. 



COMPOSITION OF WHEY. 



What is whey, then, but sweetened water, using sugar 

 of a very low sweetening quality, with a fraction of albu- 



