400 
Canadian Agriculture. 
nastj mess to manipulate as the rennet is. The main cause of 
sourness in cheese arises from letting the curd lie in the whey 
while it is hardening, until the whey gets sour. The acid then 
counteracts the effect of the rennet ferments, which should cure 
the cheese, and as a consequence the cheese does not cure. 
With regard to butter-making, Professor Arnold is of opinion 
that Canada is losing fully 1,000,000/. per annum through defec- 
tive methods, chiefly want of care in the management of the 
milk, especially in setting it to obtain the cream, and in the 
manipulation during the making of butter. The more extended 
the use of machinery becomes the better, as it will leave less to 
the skill and manipulation of the workman. Canadian butter 
does not fetch on the English market a lower price than 
American butter, the reason being that the Canadian export is 
mostly of the best grades, whereas the good American butter 
is all consumed in the States, and only the very lowest grades 
are exported. The American makers never export any butter that 
is worth more than lid. per pound. The establishment of 
creameries is a step in the right direction ; they help to educate 
dairy farmers, and they turn out an article whose uniform 
quality goes a long way towards marketing it. In a sparsely 
populated country creameries are distinctly advantageous be- 
cause the butter is all produced at centres where it can be 
most favourably sold. If a purchaser can go to a creamery 
and buy a thousand pounds of butter at once, he can afford 
to pay a better price than he could if he had to travel about and 
collect the same quantity ; and the fact that the butter is all of 
one quality adds further to its value. Creameries are very 
successful in the States, not that there they make better butter 
than the private dairies, but they make all one quality. The 
creamery, however, does not divide the proceeds equally, as the 
milk is valued by the pound, so that rich milk from generously 
fed cows commands no better price than poor milk. In the 
States, creameries are the most prosperous, do the best business, 
and give the greatest satisfaction in the West, where butter- 
making is just being introduced. But in the East they are not 
now so much in vogue, as dairymen prefen to make their own 
butter at home, and so get better v£ilue from their milk. As 
regards the drying up of pastures in the summer, Canada does 
not suffer so much as the United States, there being more 
summer rain in the former country, so that in the northern parts 
of Canada the grass remains Iresh and green through most 
of the summer. In the States it gets very dry, especially in the 
West, where the middle of the season is marked by a long dry 
spell, so that cattle lack both food and drink ; and when they 
are once allowed to run down, the quantity of milk is reduced, 
