HISTORICAL 25 



productiveness. The manure was promptly removed from the 

 stables and spread on the farm as fertilizer. 



However, after a number of years of prosperity, the enterprise 

 failed due to the financial depression following the Napoleonic 

 War, and it was not revived because of the apathy of the public. 

 Milk was milk in those days as, unfortunately, it still is with many 

 people today. 



The quality of the supply sold by Harley was an exception. 

 The majority of producers and dealers adulterated the milk in a 

 shameless manner. In the salesroom of a dairy a pump — "the 

 cow with the iron tail" of Dickens — was an ahnost universal neces- 

 sity to aid the dealer in filling his cans with water. Not satisfied 

 with diluting the milk, the dealer would remove some of the cream 

 before selUng the product. Prevention of these habits was difficult 

 in those times, since reliable methods of testing milk were not 

 known. It is true that a lactometer had been invented in the 

 last decade of the eighteenth century, but its value was not ap- 

 preciated. Milk commonly sold had a specific gravity of 1.0233 

 to 1.0267, or if skimmed, only 1.0173 to 1.0213. These abuses led 

 to the enactment of a law in 1860 entitled : "An act for preventing 

 the adulteration of articles of food." 



Butter and cheese were made in large quantities in England 

 during this period. Butter was made from sour cream and a 

 variety of cheeses were made to which few have been added up to 

 the present. Cream cheese, Gloucester, Chester, Cheddar, Stilton, 

 Pineapple, Sago, Dunlop, and Wensleydale cheeses were marketed. 

 The methods employed were empirical, of course, but protests 

 against such methods appeared. Thus Henry Holland criticizes 

 the utter lack of precision in manufacture. He suggested that a 

 cheese experiment station be established under the control of the 

 Board of Agriculture and under the management of a person well 

 skilled in chemistry, "that something like scientific principles 

 might be discovered on which to conduct the process." Another 

 utterance of a similar nature by Wilham Alton is this: "The dairy 

 maids 'practice what they have seen done by others without the 

 least attention to chemical experiment. The temperature of the 

 weather, that of the milk house, or of the milk when coagulated, 

 the quantity of rennet and of salt, etc., things of the first impor- 

 tance, which ought to be ascertained and executed exactly, on 

 chemical principles, are conducted altogether at random." 



It was recognized that clean milk will not sour as rapidly as 

 dirty milk. The vessels should be rubbed with boiling water and 

 then dried in pure air and in the sunshine. "A dairy maid should 

 not sit down under a cow with a pail which a fine lady would 

 scruple to cool her tea in." These suggestions were published in 



