404 Saddle and Sirloin. 



the evening with no small energy against mere rule of 

 thumb management. We heard this Makesbury 

 " Minister of Public Instruction" very well, but the 

 acoustics of the room are so bad, that although we 

 were not more than thirteenth from the chairman, Mr. 

 Barbour, the only thing we gathered from him and the 

 speakers round him, was the word " Rabbits." 



Cheese-making in Cheshire runs very much in 

 families. Some have a sort of hereditary genius 

 for making it almost irrespective of the land, which 

 is generally a very strong loam, and others, with 

 every chance and appliance, never make a first-rate 

 article.* The cheese farms generally run from 100 



* The following is a portion of Mr. Harding's lecture on Cheese- 

 making, delivered before the Tarporley Club: "There should be a 

 proper dairy room ; but this indispensable item in dairy practice, as a 

 rule, is wanting throughout the length and breadth of our land, in the 

 absence of which there can be seldom a guarantee for making good 

 cheese. The milk, so delicate in its nature, requires to be deposited in 

 a place entirely free from every impurity ; the floor of the room should 

 be clean, and every precaution taken to render it dry. Cement should 

 be used where necessary to fill up joints or cracks, so as to destroy 

 every lodging-place for filth ; every utensil in use should not only be 

 clean but appear with a polish. The milk should be poured into a re- 

 ceiver outside the dairy-house, and conveyed by a pipe, or rather an open 

 shoot or conduit, to the vessel prepared for its reception in the milk- 

 house, that the milkers may not enter the dairy. Under these circum- 

 stances milk may be kept sweet in ordinary weather, in a temperature of 

 63 to 65 degrees, during the night in one vessel (say, the cheese tub), to 

 which the morning's milk may with safety be added, and a fine cheese 

 be the result. I cannot understand why persons prefer the labour of 

 making cheese twice a day, when cheese of a superior description can be 

 produced by making once as I have described. As to preparing the milk 

 for the reception of the rennet, in the absence of Cockey's or any heating 

 apparatus beyond ioo degrees, during the summer months it frequently 

 happens that no heating is required, the evening milk in the cheese tub 

 having stood at 56 to 70 degrees ; and that of the morning coming in to 

 mix with it at a temperature of 90 degrees, will at once fix the bulk at 

 78 to 80 degrees, the temperature required. The rennet, which should 

 be perfectly sweet and its strength practically known, should at once be 

 introduced and stirred into the milk so as to take immediate and univer- 

 sal effect, and at once arrest the particles of cream, and prevent their 

 escape to the surface. If the atmosphere be close and damp, and the 

 temperature high, care should be taken to prevent the over-heating of 



