CHEESE. 81 



gradually the mass of curd is thus systematically reduced 

 to little fragments, and sinks, and the clear green whey is 

 drawn off through the strainer. It has been separated so 

 gradually, that it throws up little or no cream on stand- 

 ing, and therefore it at once goes to the pig's vault. 

 Keevil's machine is a fixture on the dairy floor ; it is con- 

 nected with an outside hopper, through which the milkmen 

 pour the contents of their pails, and thus they never enter 

 the dairy. It may he a jacketed vessel, and thus receive 

 hot or cold water around it for the regulation of the tempe- 

 rature of its contents. This or other similar machines 

 has long been adopted in Gloucestershire, with, we under- 

 stand, satisfaction to those who have broken through the 

 ordinary practice of the district by employing it. 



Cheshire Cheese-making requires the use of a milk- 

 house, where the evening's milk is placed to cool, a dairy 

 where the cheese-tub stands, into which the morning's 

 milk is at once poured, and where there is a furnace and 

 boilers for scalding the whey and for boiling water ; where 

 also the cheese presses stand and (if there be no drying 

 house) whence the cheeses, after pressure, are finally 

 removed to the cheese-room or store. The cheeses vary in 

 size from \ cwt. upwards. 



Cheese is made only once a day, and in small dairies 

 sometimes once only in two days ; a cool place in which to 

 keep the milk is therefore indispensable. The rennet used 

 in Cheshire dairies is made fresh from the veils each day. 

 Two bits of 2 or 3 square inches are cut off them, and 

 put into half a pint of warm water the day before use, 

 along with a tea-spoonful of salt, and this effusion is the 

 rennet, and suffices for 50 or 60 gallons of milk. The 



