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ly. — Recent Improvements in Dairy Practice. 
By Joseph Harding. 
The spirit of improvement which has so largely pervaded the 
agricultural world during the last twenty-five or thirty years 
is not more manifest in the production of corn and meat than it 
is in the manufacture of butter and cheese ; and though the latter 
branch has not derived as much benefit from the assistance of 
national or local agricultural societies as the former, it has yet 
made great progress l)oth as to the quantity and the quality of 
its products. To the attainment of this object nearly every well- 
informed and intelligent dairy-farmer has contributed his part. 
In detailing these improvements I may not, perhaps, be expected 
to go into all the dairy districts of England, and to particularise 
every improvement which has taken place in each of them ; 
my experience, as a Somersetshire man, milking a dairy of 
my own of from 70 to 75 cows, will enable me to speak from 
personal and practical knowledge as to the improvements, in all 
their details, in the dairy practice of my own county, more 
especially in the manufacture of cheese. 
I believe, however, from the knowledge which I have of other 
dairy districts, such as Gloucester, Wilts, Leicester, Derby, and 
Cheshire, that any disinterested person t;iking upon himself to 
w^rite upon the subject could not fix on a district better calcu- 
lated to answer the requirements of tlie Royal Agricultural 
Society of England than the county of Somerset. It is true that 
this county is not much noted for its butter ; but as a district 
for making cheese, due regard being had both to quantity and 
quality, it is not surpassed in Great Britain. Here is made 
what is termed the " Cheddar cheese," which is always quoted in 
the London market at a higher price than any other (Stilton 
excepted, which is not a fair example). Here, too, an example 
has been set in the improvement of machinery, utensils, and 
mode of manufacture, which has given a stimulus not only to all 
the surrounding districts, but even to Scotland.* 
But my business is not so much to eulogise the dairy practice 
and produce of this or any other district, as to detail, in a simple 
and intelligible manner, any improvements which have tended 
to increase the quantity, improve the quality of these products, 
and at the same time to reduce the labour of manufacture. 
* See a pamphlet published by the Deputation sent by the Ayrshire Agricul- 
tural Association to the various cheese-making districts in England, to ascertain 
the best and most remunerative method of cheese-making, and reprinted in the 
Journal of the Bath and West of England Society, 1857. 
