No. 4.] UNITED STATES DAIRYING. 159 



rily be assigned to the " white-oak " viiriety in grade, with- 

 out hesitation. But cheese is made from whole milk Avliich 

 ranges in its contents of fat all the way from two and one- 

 half to five per cent. There is as much difference in fat, 

 and hence in quality, between these limits, as between 

 cheese made from two and one-half per cent milk and that 

 fully skimmed. Under all the State laws, a cheese from 

 three per cent milk is as much entitled to be branded " full 

 cream," and bear the State trade-mark, as one from five per 

 cent milk. Besides this inequality, there is unquestionably 

 much cheese on sale, marked " full cream," made from milk 

 which has been partly skimmed. The unfairness which 

 results, often in the form of intentional deception, is in efiect 

 as much a fraud as was filled cheese, although differing in 

 kind. There is no moral distinction between selling as 

 genuine cheese an article which has a part of its natural fat 

 removed, and one which contains a full allowance of fat but 

 of a wrong kind. The skim and part skim cheese evil 

 remains to be dealt with in some effective way. Until 

 properly regulated, it will continue an annoyance and injury 

 to the manufacture, sale and use of first-class cheese. It is 

 as easy to make a fat test of milk which is to be made into 

 cheese as of that w4iich is to be made into butter. The qual- 

 ity (or fatness, so to speak) of a lot of milk being known, the 

 fat percentage of cheese made from it by a competent maker 

 will be known also. And a skilful operator can measure 

 the fat in a sample of cheese, with a Babcock tester, as 

 accurately and almost as easily as milk can be tested. All 

 admit that, if well made and cured, the proportion of milk 

 fat in cheese measures its quality and value. Such being the 

 facts, I propose that all cheese, in the usual commercial or 

 factory form, be graded and branded according to the fat 

 content of the milk from which it was made, using the 

 nearest numeral as the distinsuishinor mark. An allowance 

 of possible error to the extent of one-half of one per cent 

 might be made ; this is unnecessarily liberal, but would 

 accommodate the grading. By this plan, cheese w^ould be 

 marked 0, 1, 2, 3 and 4. The higher the number, the better 

 the grade of cheese. A full-cream cheese of high grade 

 would be marked 3. Numbers 1 and 2 would be for 



