

THE DAIRY. 307 



over night. In the morning, immediately before the milk is coagulated, the 

 whole of this infusion is mixed with it in the cheese-tub, and the rag is dipped 

 in the milk, and rubbed on the palm of the hand until all the colouring matter 

 is completely extracted. 



A very simple method is thus recommended. Take a piece about the size 

 of a hazlenut, put it into a pint of milk the night before you intend to make 

 cheese, and it will dissolve. Add it to the milk at the time the rennet is put 

 in. This quantity will colour a cheese of twenty pounds weight. PARKINSON. 



In making cheese the milk is put into a large tub, and this, 

 as soon after being obtained from the cows as possible. If 

 there is a sufficient number of cows on the farm to produce one 

 cheese at a milking, the process is performed immediately. 

 The milk, after being strained through a sieve, is put into a 

 vat, and while yet warm, a table-spoonful or two of the rennet 

 (or a sufficiency) is mixed with it, after which the coagulation 

 soon takes place. 



But if there are not a sufficient number of cows to make a 

 cheese each time they are milked, the milk as it is brought 

 from the cows, is put into milk vessels, until as much is col- 

 lected as will form a cheese. When the cheese is ready to be 

 made, the cream is skimmed off, and as much of the milk is 

 heated separately, as, when added to the mass again, will raise 

 it to about 90. The cream which has been separated is then 

 either mixed with this heated milk, and so liquefied and dis- 

 solved in it, or it is not incorporated with the general mass 

 until the heated milk has been added. 



The curd being fully formed, is cut in various directions 

 with the cheese-knife, so as to permit the whey to exude; 

 the whey is then taken out in flat dishes, the curd at the same 

 time undergoing a gentle pressure. By the operation of the 

 cheese-knife, the curd is then cut into small pieces, put into a 

 sieve or vat with holes, and then repeatedly cut, pressed by 

 the hand and broken, until it ceases to give off any serous mat- 

 ter. It is last of all cut very fine by the cheese-knife, and a 

 quantity of salt, in the proportion of half an ounce to a pound 

 of cheese, being mixed with it, it is wrapped in a piece of 

 cloth, and then placed in a small wooden vessel, with circular 

 holes at the sides and bottom, and placed in the cheese-press. 

 This is the process of cheese making, as detailed in the Ele- 

 ments of Agriculture. Some others, however, recommend 

 that when the curd is sufficiently drained, and broken with the 

 hand as small as possible, that the salt, which should be of the 

 most superior kind, be scattered over the curd, and intimately 

 mixed with it; the proportion, however, has not been correct- 

 ly ascertained, and is regulated by experience. 



The pressing process is one of great nicety, as the period for which the cheese 

 should remain in the press is, in a great measure, dependent upon the nature 

 of the cheese, and the degree of previous manipulation which it had under- 



