Proceedings of the Farmers' Club. 589 



on a large scale. My grandfather carried on dairying in "SYalpole, New- 

 Hampshire, a great many years ago ; grandmother of course making 

 the cheese. Tliis cheese found regular customers in Boston and 

 vicinity. Finally my mother took grandmother's place as cheesemaker, 

 making the same quality of cheese and supplying the same cus- 

 tomers. The largest portion of this cheese went to one customer, 

 and after awhile it became known that he furnished it to the Tre- 

 mont House^ at that time peerless among Boston hotels. About the 

 year 1835 or 1836, an agent from the Tremonf House came to Wal- 

 pole and contracted directly with my mother, then a widow, for the 

 cheese, paying fourteen cents per pound for new, and twenty cents 

 per pound for old. Before this time I Kelieve this cheese brought 

 respectively, twelve and eighteen cents per pound. The cheese Avas 

 delivered only once a year. This contract stood until 1852, at which 

 time the Tremont House changed proprietors. Ordinary cheese, 

 during this period, commanded but six to eight cents per pound. 

 Was this cheese equal to cotemporary English cheese ? I never com- 

 pared the two kinds ; but being present one time when the cheese 

 was delivered, I recollect very distinctly of hearing Mr. Tucker, then 

 proprietor of the Tremont House, say that he did not have enough 

 of it ; that he could sell " stacks " of it if he had it ; that he had to 

 let some of his guests take a cheese home with them, and thus it 

 had gone to the principal cities of the United States, and a good 

 number had gone to England. Why should English gentlemen 

 trouble themselves to take cheese across the ocean if they could be 

 better satisfied with their own country's make ? 



Did it have keeping qualities ? Being marketed but once a year, 

 when it left the cheese room for the packing boxes the new cheese 

 ranged from two to six months old, and the old from fourteen to 

 eighteen months old. Now consider that this one shipment was the 

 yearly supply of the hotel, and you will see that some of the new 

 would be fourteen to eighteen months old, and some of the old would 

 be twenty-six to thirty months old when consumed. Since the old 

 cheese brought six cents a pound more than the new, it could not 

 have deteriorated, but rather must have improved by age. It was 

 colored with aunota and never faded. Both old and new were on 

 our table at .all seasons of the year, and my distant recollection is 

 that it grew darker colored by age, so much that the old could be 

 told from the new by its darker shade of color alone. This cheese 

 had a pleasant, smart, but not a strong taste. Its excellence was 



