^78 



CATTLE AND DAIRY FARMING. 



countries. Cattle improvement is a study of the Italian farmer. Care, still, and science 

 are used in the preparation and manipulation of the products of the dairy. Italian but- 

 ter and cheese, though expensive, are used on every continent; and such is their excel- 

 lence that, despite that strange but universal fancy for foreign articles, Italians preler 

 them. 



A successful imitation of Italian cheese in the United States would enable our dairy- 

 men to supply the demand for it in our country, and export it to those lands where it is 

 used. As the cost of production is but slightly more than that of American cheese, the 

 justly high price that it commands would make its manufacture profitable. The prac- 

 ticability of imitation is showa by the recent successful copying of Swiss cheese in our 

 country; its utility by the large exportation of these imitations. I will minutely de- 

 scribe, from observation and ofiftcial data, Italian cheese-making processes to enable the 

 cheese-makers of the Mohawk Valley and other dairying districts of our country to pro- 

 duce it in their factories. 



Milk foods. — The Piedmontese make butter and many kinds of cheese, of which grwjera 

 fontina, ruUole, grana, and strQechina'a.T:^ the best. Qruyera and fontina are made from 

 the Estival pasturage of the valley d'Aosta. Bubiole are small sheep's milk cheeses of 

 Alba, Mondovi, and Accj^ui, whence they axe considerably exported. Grana and strae- 

 chinoaxe Novarese products. The former is made during ten months of the year; the 

 latter in October and November. The mode of preparing them is being improved; but 

 . the Increased price of butter induces its extensive manufacture to their detriment. 



A large quantity of excellent butter, grana, and siracehino is made in Southern Lom- 

 bardy and Mortara. Lecco, Varese, Bergamo, and Breschia produce good straechino and 

 butter. Delicious cheeses, called ' ' formaggini, ' ' are made on the rich pasture of the Val- 

 tellina hills. 



Inferior butter and cheese are made in Mantua. Lodi, Pa via, and Milan, which pro- 

 duce 24,000,000 pounds of butter and 60,280,000 pounds of cheese, are the best dairying 

 districts of Lombardy. The cheese of Venetian factories is poor, but the butter of the 

 •mountains of Caprio, Basano, and Valdagno is justly famous. 



In Asiago there are 85 creameries and cheese factories, employing 300 hands, and an- 

 nually producing 33,400 pounds of cheese and 37,400 of butter. 



The dairying interest in Liguria is small. The Emelian plain, between the Panaro on 

 the east and the Tribbia on the west, is, with Lower Lombardy, the center of Italian 

 cheese and butter making. 



There are 35 factories with 50 cows apiece in the Piacenza district, annually producing 

 286,000 pounds of grana and 124,000 pounds of butter. Owners of two or three cows 

 send their milk to these factories for working. 



Dairying is the chief rural industry of the Paremesians. Their grana (called "parmi- 

 giano ") iB sent to OUT country. The 129 "casselli," or establishments where it is made, 

 are scattered on -the plain and on the hills, and have 184 caldrons lor the boiling of milk, 

 and 130 chprns for butter making. In their production of 1,650,000 pounds of butter 

 and cheese, they consume 9,000,000 quarts of milk. The working season is from April 

 to November, though 20 "casselli" are open all the year. 



The Emelian cheese keeps well, is improved by age, and much used as a relish with 

 meats. It is made as in Lombardy, but because the cream is only removed from one 

 milldng, the percentage of poor cheese is less. In TJmbria and the Marshes they make 

 a cbnsiderable quantity of cheese of sheep's and goat's milk, and a little of cow's milk. 

 That made on the mountains of Visso, in the ©amerino district, is excellent and cele- 

 brated. 



The small Marcerata region produced alone, according to the last report, 160,000 pounds 

 of cheese per year. It has but few cows, and those of Tjiscan and Swiss stock. They 

 give, on an average, from 11 to 13 quarts per day. In some factories cheese is made of 

 sheep's, goat's and cow's milk mixed. Cheese of the first kind is extensively exported 

 and sells, where produced, at 15 and 20 cents per pound. It obtained prizes at Florence, 

 London, and Paris. Its excellence is due to the healthy and aromatic plants which 

 abound on the Marcerata hills. From sheep's milk the Spoletese produce annually 

 about 770,000 pounds of cheese. One of their factories makes yearly, from the milk of 

 70 choice Swiss cows, 23,000 pounds of cheese and 2, 000 of butter. The sheep's-milk 

 cheese, called " Crete," of Siena, Tuscany, is well known and good. It bears a distinc- 

 tive name, but is not made by special process. It is prepared by peasants, without sys- 

 tem, and in small lots. Factories for its scientific manufacture have been recently 

 erected. Little cheese is made in Lazio, owing to the scarcity of sheep and the poor 

 quality of the milch cows. 



The sweet cheeses of th6 southern Adriatic provinces of Italy, called "marzoline " 

 are said to be delicious, and equal to any produced elsewhere. ' 



A Government committee reported some years ago that their excellence was due to rich 

 milk; that old modes of cheese making were followed; that dairying, inclndiu" utensils 

 milking, quality and quantity of rennet for coagulating, cheese making, salting, and pre' 



