MILKING. 255 



on a variety of incidental circumstances. The cows 

 should ever be milked, during the summer season, 

 very early in the morning, and at the latest con- 

 venience in the afternoon, in order to avoid the ill 

 effects of the solar heat. Again, the cows should not 

 be driven any considerable distance to be milked, by 

 which the milk becomes heated in the udder ; nor 

 should the milk be carried any distance, as the motion 

 and agitation occasioned by carriage has nearly the 

 effect of churning it into butter, and rendering it 

 unfit to be made into cheese. Milk, in this buttery 

 state, will often be four or five hours before it will 

 curdle, and here we have the cause of that defect on 

 cheese, called hoven, or split. It is one of the 

 greatest advantages in a cheese dairy, to have the 

 cow pastures as near to home as possible ; and, should 

 the herbage be insufficient, the cows might still re- 

 main on the home pastures, their food from other 

 parts of the farm being cut and carried to them. Dr. 

 Anderson recommends milking the cows three times 

 in the day, and, probably, more milk might be so 

 obtained, but the additional labour is considerable, 

 and the cows are too much disturbed by it. 



The milk ought to be conveyed as quickly as possible 

 to the dairy, and poured into different vessels for the 

 purpose of cooling it with the least delay, more espe- 

 cially in summer, to avoid fermentation ; and to this 

 end it is the custom repeatedly to draw off the milk 

 and pour it back again into the coolers. Leaden 

 utensils, indeed, cool the milk more expeditiously than 

 any other, but their danger, from the poisonous pro- 



