410 THE MIDLANDS 



through an accident The cheese first attracted 

 general notice on the table of the Bell Inn at Stilton 

 on the Great North Road in the coaching days about 

 the middle of the eighteenth century, but it was made 

 by one Mrs. Paulet, of Melton, and had nothing to do 

 with Huntingdon, in which Stilton is situate. We 

 visited one cheese factory in Hartington, which made it 

 very evident why the making of Stilton cheese should 

 have become concentrated into the hands of specialists. 

 Not only is the actual manufacture a somewhat nice 

 process, requiring exactitude in such matters as the 

 proportion of rennet to add and the degree of acidity 

 to which the milk should have attained, and judgment 

 in deciding upon the consistency of the curd before it 

 is packed into the mould, but only a reasonably large 

 output can justify the necessary arrangements for heat- 

 ing or cooling, ventilating, etc., the cheese room. 



Stilton is only manufactured during the summer, 

 and then requires from three to six months' ripening 

 before it is ready for market ; this ripening must take 

 place in a room maintained at nearly a constant tem- 

 perature, yet supplied with fresh air and kept moist. 

 The ripening is watched with anxiety, as upon its 

 character depends the price the cheese will fetch. The 

 maker is constantly inspecting his cheeses, boring out 

 samples with a little semi-circular auger, and scrutiniz- 

 ing them for colour and texture the desiderata being 

 bright green mould on a white ground without any 

 trace of yellow or brown stain, a short crummy 

 structure, neither soapy nor greasy, and a sharp charac- 

 teristic smell. Defects will creep in, and it is a difficult 

 matter to track their causes ; sometimes intrusive 

 bacteria enter with the water, sometimes an excess 

 of one of the necessary materials, rennet or salt, 

 for example, disturbs the due equilibrium existing 



