276 On Cheese-making in Home Dairies and in Factories. 
The cheese varies considerably in quality throughout the year, 
the earlier make of March and April being considerably less 
valuable than that of summer and early autumn. Some of this 
varying quality is owing to quality of milk, and some to the neces- 
sity of holding a portion of curd over from day to day when the 
quantity is insufficient to make either one, or it may be two, full- 
sized cheeses daily. In such cases it is common to make one 
full-sized cheese and hold the remainder of the curd over till the 
next day, keeping it wrapped up on the drainer or pan, and 
grinding it up in the curd-mill along with the curd of the next 
morning. 
The quantity of cheese made varies from 3^ to 4 cwt. per cow 
per annum on good farms. The quantity of butter made in a 
good dairy will not be half a pound per cow in the early summer 
from both whey and milk ; in the autumn, the milk being richer, 
considerably more may be made without diminishing the quality 
of the cheese. Mr. Aston, of Brassey Green, is an advocate of 
the private dairy system : — " The labour is the ordinary farm 
life to which the mistress and her servants are all accustomed. 
The cost of fuel which might be saved were the milk sent to a 
factory would be immaterial, for all dairy vessels would in any 
case require a daily scalding, as usual ; the whey which, except 
at the cost of much inconvenient labour, would be lost to the 
farm, is the main agent in pig-feeding, and the loss of the pig- 
manure would be a great injury to the soil. The whey is valuect 
on Cheshire farms at nearly 21. annually per cow. The whole 
equipment of farm-house and dairy, often costly, and in the case 
of some Cheshire estates, very perfect and complete, would go- 
for nothing. The price at which in the Derbyshire dairies the 
annual profit shows that the milk has been sold, is less than that 
which can be made of it in many Cheshire dairies. No farmer 
making good cheese would be willing to part with his milk for 
7frf. per gallon." — This is Mr. Aston's statement. 
3. The Gloucestershire System, as ordinarily conducted, 
may be gathered from the practice on Mr. Charles Bennptt's farm, 
near Stone, in the Vale of Berkeley. There is here a dairy of 40" 
to 48 cows, on a farm of 260 acres, of which 32 are arable. 
Cheese is made only once a day. The evening's milk is place(} 
in the cheese-tub and in other vessels, standing not more than 
3 inches deep during the night, so as to lose its natural heat 
as quickly and completely as possible. It is there stirred occa- 
sionally during the evening and the last thing at night to check 
the rising of the cream. Any cream that has risen in the morning 
is skimmed, and so much as it is desired to keep for butter is set 
apart ; the remainder, with enough of the milk, is floated in tin 
