Canadian Agriculture. 
399 
a staff of skilful and experienced dairymen is a necessity, and 
the only way to get such men is to educate them, and for this 
object the establishment of dairy schools throughout the 
country is advocated. Further, to teach butter-making in such 
schools, there must be a definite theory of the process, scien- 
fically studied and practically worked out, and this, it is 
maintained, involves the establishment of an experimental 
dairy station of the kind at present existing in large numbers on 
the continent of Europe. The theory studied at the experi- 
mental station would be taught in the dairy schools, practised 
in the butter factories, and so be the means of diffusing a sound 
practical knowledge of butter-making amongst the farmers 
in general. In short, the system of teaching, both theoretical 
and practical, which is advocated, is similar to that which is 
in operation in Denmark. 
Professor Arnold, of Rochester, New York State, who has 
devoted his life to the study of dairying, and whose name 
is well known on this side of the Atlantic, gave some exceedingly 
valuable evidence before the Select Committee. He attributes 
the defects in cheese-making in Canada to a want of skill on the 
part of the manufacturers, and to a deficiency in the quality 
of the rennet. Notwithstanding the appreciation in which 
Canadian cheese is held on the English market, there is not 
5 per cent, of it equal to what it might be; the difference in 
price, however, is no criterion of the difference in merit, for 
poor cheese is sold at a higher, and good cheese at a lower, 
rate than its true value. In Professor Arnold's own district 
efforts are being made to overcome the drawback associated 
with inferior rennet, but they make only slow progress. 
Numerous establishments are supplied with perfectly pure 
"liquid pepsine," free from any other animal matter. It is 
distributed by the quart or the gallon to the dairymen, as they 
prefer. In the preparation of rennet, manufacturers are apt to 
get it tainted, and it will even undergo putrefaction, in which 
condition it injures the quality of the cheese very materially. 
The stuff used by some of the dairymen in Canada and the States 
is surprising, and four inspectors reported that they found 75 per 
cent, of the factories they visited using rennet that was actually 
putrid, while the rest were using good material or rennet 
extract. As the extract costs a little more than the raw 
stomach, its introduction progresses but slowly. The Govern- 
ment might help to improve matters if they would find funds 
to enable the dairymen's associations to pay in part for the 
extract, so that the dairymen could procure it as cheaply as 
they get the rennet. The dairymen would prefer the extract, 
because it saves them a great deal of labour, and is not such a 
