Composition of Cheese. 43 



It is the same with cheese-making as with cookery, as we shall 

 do well to bear in mind. 



Lest these observations on publications on cheese-making 

 should seem to disparage too much the merits of the different 

 authors, I may state distinctly that a few papers contain valuable 

 and plain directions for making good cheese ; but I am bound 

 at the same time to confess that the greater number, and more 

 especially most of the prize essays on cheese-making which I 

 have read, in my humble opinion, are next to useless to the 

 dairy-farmer, inasmuch as they generally contain nothing good 

 but what every dairy-farmer has long known ever since he began 

 making cheese, and a great deal besides, which, though it may 

 appear novel, ingenious, or feasible, will at once be condemned 

 by any man of sound judgment as visionary' and utterly im- 

 practicable. 



There are many topics intimately connected with the manu- 

 facture of cheese on which I have not touched at all, such as the 

 influence of the food on the quantity and quality of milk, an 

 important subject as yet hardly investigated at all. Again the 

 influence of the race on the production of milk deserves to be 

 carefully studied, besides various other points on which practical 

 men may wish to obtain trustworthy information. My passing 

 them over in silence in the present paper will not I trust be 

 taken as an indication of want of acquaintance with the real 

 practical wants of the dairy -farmer. 



Hitherto scarcely anything directly bearing on dairy-practice 

 has been done by scientific men : the whole investigation has, 

 therefore, engaged my liveliest attention, and brought to light 

 some unexpected chemical facts which have been recorded in 

 the preceding pages. Others I hope to lay before the readers 

 of the Journal of the Royal Agricultural Society when the re- 

 searches still in hand shall be in a sufficiently advanced state to 

 warrant their publication. 



Royal Agricultural College, Cirencester, June, 1861. 



London : Printed by W. CLOWES and SONS, Stamford Street, and Charing Cross. 



