4G 
Composition of Cheese. 
terials arc even more tliorouglily spoiled on the other side of the 
Atlantic than in England. 
Let me next direct attention to some of the principal mistakes 
which are not unfrequently committed in the manufacture of- 
cheese. I have said in the beginning of this paper — 1st, that 
cheese is sometimes spoiled even before it is separated from the 
milk ; 2ndly, that it is yet more frequently spoiled in the act of 
making ; and, lastly, that it is sometimes deteriorated by bad 
keeping after it has been made. 
I. — Practical Mistakes made in the Manufacture of 
Cheese before the Curd is separated. 
The inferior character, and especially the bad flavour, of 
cheese owes its origin in many cases to a want of proper care in 
handling the milk from which it has been made. Milk some- 
times gets spoiled by dirty fingers before it passes into the pail. 
If the vessels in which the milk is kept in the dairy have, been 
carelessly washed, and the milk-pails and cheese-tub have not 
been well scrubbed, but merely been washed out, and if especially 
the dairy-utensils have not been scalded with boiling-hot water, 
it is vain to expect that cheese of the finest quality can be made, 
let the milk be ever so rich in cream. The neglect of these 
simple but important precautions soon manifests itself in a 
dairy by a peculiar ferment which taints the whole milk, and 
afterwards affects the flavour and consequently the quality of the 
cheese. Cleanliness, indeed, may be said to be the first quali- 
fication of a good dairy woman. 
The nature of every ferment is to produce in other matters 
with which it comes into contact certain chemical changes de- 
pending on its own character. Thus a little yeast produces 
in fermentable liquids large quantities of alcohol and carbonic 
acid ; acid ferments containing acetic or lactic acid have a ten- 
dency to generate vinegar or lactic acid in other liquids. A 
small piece of putrefying meat in contact with a large mass of 
sound flesh soon spreads putrefaction over the whole mass ; and 
other ferments act in a similar 'manner. Such ferments generally 
produce in other matters with which they are brought into contact 
changes similar to those which they themselves undergo. The dis- 
agi'ceable smell of dirty or badly cleaned milk-pails and cheese-tubs 
is due to a peculiar ferment, which is rapidly formed, especially in 
warm weather, when milk is left in contact with air and with the 
porous wood of the cheese-tub and milk-pails. In the rapid pro- 
cess of vinegar manufacture a weak alcoholic liquid is allowed to 
trickle through a barrel perforated all over with holes to admit 
the air, and filled with wood-shavings. If the temperature of 
the room in which the vinegar-casks are put up is sufficiently 
