42 Composition of Clteese. 



cheese-rooms ; with the latter it is almost impossible to maintain 

 an equable temperature. The cheeses nearest to the stove again 

 are apt to get too much, and those farthest off not enough, heat. 

 Constant attention is moreover required ; and firing in the room 

 is always productive of more or less dust and dirt. These in- 

 conveniences are entirely avoided by the system of heating by 

 hot-water pipes. 



In every dairy hot water is in constant request ; the same 

 boiler which heats the water for cleaning the dairy-utensils may 

 be conveniently connected with iron-pipes that pass in and 

 round the cheese-room. Beyond the first cost of the iron-pipes 

 hardly any extra expense in fuel is thus incurred. An extra pipe 

 likewise may be introduced which connects the boiler with 

 Coquet's apparatus, and by this means the curd in the tub may 

 be scalded much more conveniently and regularly than by pour- 

 ing hot whey or water over it. I have not made a sufficient 

 number of observations to say definitely which is the best tem- 

 perature to be maintained in a cheese-room ; but in my judgment 

 a uniform temperature of 70 to 75 is highly favourable to the 

 ripening process. 



The proper regulation of the temperature of the cheese-room, 

 and the general plan of heating by hot water, I believe, is one of 

 greatest of our recent improvements. 



These are some of the practical mistakes which I have noticed 

 in our dairies. I have endeavoured to assign reasons why they 

 must be so regarded, and have ventured to point out the appro- 

 priate remedies, many of which, however, suggest themselves 

 naturally to any intelligent observer. My object has been, not 

 so much to write a treatise on cheese-making, as to enable those 

 interested in dairy operations to read the various treatises and 

 pamphlets on cheese-making with profit, so as to be able to sift 

 the recommendations which are worth imitating from the heap 

 of empirical rubbish under which they are too often buried. No 

 directions, however carefully given, can ever be of much service 

 in an art which, like cheese-making, does not so much presup- 

 pose a great amount of knowledge as practical experience, dex- 

 terity, and cleanly habits. Neither skill in manipulation, nor 

 habits of cleanliness, nor experience can be acquired by reading. 

 A good or a sensible pamphjet, no doubt, may be read with 

 benefit even by an experienced hand ; but the very best of 

 treatises, in the nature of things, cannot teach a person who 

 wants a rule or a recipe for everything how to make good cheese. 

 A good cookery-book, no doubt, is a useful literary production, 

 but the best cookery-book is incapable of teaching an inexperi- 

 enced person the art of making light and wholesome pie-crust. 



