THE DAIRY. 285 



stance still retains the caseous matter of the milk, and may, 

 therefore, be employed for the making of cheese. But it is 

 not so well suited for this purpose as the entire milk, because 

 the cream, which adds to the richness of the cheese, has been 

 mostly withdrawn. It may be used for human food, and is 

 perfectly nutritious, containing both the cheesy matter and 

 sugar of milk. Over a large part of England it is chiefly 

 employed for the feeding of Hogs, which is a great misappli- 

 cation of a substance fitted for human aliment, and practised 

 in no other country in Europe. 



When the milk and cream are churned together, the dairy 

 affords no skimmilk, But in place of it there is the butter- 

 milk, which is a greatly more nutritive substance than that 

 which is obtained when the cream alone is churned. It is 

 merely, in truth, the milk deprived of its butter. It is sub- 

 acid and cooling, and is used for food in some of the western 

 counties of England, largely throughout the west of Scotland, 

 and all over Ireland. It may be coagulated, and cheese pre- 

 pared from it ; but the cheese of buttermilk is of little esti- 

 mation. When buttermilk is kept, it partially undergoes the 

 alcoholic fermentation, and becomes intoxicating. 



The consumption of butter in the British Islands is prodi- 

 giously great. It is used by all classes in the solid form as 

 a grateful food ; and is applied to the same purposes of house- 

 hold economy for which oil is used in the countries of the 

 olive. Notwithstanding the vast internal production, a large 

 importation takes place from other countries, chiefly from 

 Germany and Holland. The principal district of the butter 

 dairy in England is the southern and south-eastern counties. 

 Butter is brought to London in the fresh state from the dis- 

 tant provinces ; and even when salted, it is the practice of 

 the dealers to wash out the salt, and sell the butter to the 

 inhabitants as fresh. 



The other product of the dairy is Cheese, which may either 

 be produced by curdling the entire milk, or by separating the 

 cream and coagulating the milk alone. The first process is 



