No. 149.] 377 



If a farmer is desirous of obtaining a large supply of rich milk, 

 he must be generous to his animals, and keep them well supplied 

 with rich luxuriant pasturage, otherwise he will be most wofully 

 disappointed, as no animal shows her keep more rapidly than 

 the milch cow; and if she has been fed on turnips, cabbages, or 

 by chance has met with the wild onion in her travels through 

 the pasture, you immediately observe it, not only in the milk, 

 but in the butter ; or if fed in cities on brewer's grains, it is at 

 once perceptible by the blue watery appearance of the liquid. 



Milk undergoes, when suffered to remain quiet for a short 

 time, a spontaneous change, and divides itself into two parts, one 

 of which, a rich yellowish unctuous fluid with a delicious taste, 

 containing the butter, rises to the top, and is usually known as 

 cream — the other part remains at the bottom of the vessel, and is 

 called skimmed milk after the cream has been taken off". This 

 matter presents a bluish white color, and if exposed to a tempera- 

 ture of 70° for 24 hours, becomes a sour coagulum, unfit and in- 

 capable of forming cheese. During this spontaneous change, an 

 acid has been formed, separating the milk into two portions, 

 called whey and lactic acid. 



To produce the proper curd, or coagulum, necessary to make 

 cheese, rennet, or the inner coat of the stomach of some ruminat- 

 ing animal, for instance a calf, boiled to a liquid, must be em- 

 ployed, treated to a temperature of 100°. The inside of the 

 stomach of pigs, or the membrane lining the gizzard of fowls, 

 is frequently used to turn the milk ; vinegar and other acid will 

 have the same effect. . The Dutch use muriatic acid in the place 

 of rennet. Some astringent vegetables will effect the same object. 

 Molasses, alcohol, and neutral salts, have been used with good 

 effect. 



It is singular that curd formed by spontaneous coagulation is 

 weak, and unites with water without difficulty ; whereas that 

 artificially produced is very firm, and perfectly insoluble in ^ 

 water. 



Casein, the basis of cheese, is white, inodorous, insipid, and 

 insoluble in water. When newly made the whey adheres closely 

 to it ; alter pressure and drying this matter becomes cheese. 



