254 Milk and Its Products 
might be at hand, or simply with the fingers, no 
care being taken that the pieces of curd should be 
of uniform shape or size, but now gangs of steel 
knives, in one of which the blades are arranged 
horizontally and the other perpendicularly, are used 
to cut the mass of curd into cubes of about % of 
an inch in diameter. The fat is retained in the 
cheese by being enclosed in the meshes of the casein, 
and in breaking up the mass of casein, a certain 
number of fat globules is always set free. The 
care with which the cutting and subsequent hand- 
ling of the curd is done controls the loss of fat 
through this source. Formerly, the mass of curd 
was allowed to become very firm before cutting, but 
the more recent practice has shown that the best 
results in expelling the whey from the curd are 
reached when the curd is cut, so soon as it has 
sufficiently coagulated to maintain its form. The 
curd is cut by passing the horizontal knife through 
the vat, usually in a longitudinal direction, and then 
by passing the perpendicular knife both longitudi- 
nally and crosswise of the vat. It is immaterial 
whether the horizontal or perpendicular knives are 
used first. Some skilled. cheese-makers prefer the 
one practice and some the other. The object to be 
attained is to break up the curd into as uniform 
a mass of kernels as possible, or, in the language 
of the cheese-maker, to secure an “even cut.” After 
the curd ‘is cut, the whey begins to escape, and the 
curd sinks to the bottom of the vat. If allowed to 
remain undisturbed, the cut surfaces of the particles 
