Cheshire Cheese. 
105 
dairies leaden or zinc coolers. Most of the milk-rooms have lat- 
tice or wire windows for the circulation of air, and the floors are 
laid in a sloping form for the free escape of the cold water with 
which they are daily swilled throughout the summer months. If 
precautions of this nature be not attended to. there is a risk of the 
evening's milk becoming sour ; in which case, whatever quantity 
of new milk be added to it in the morning, the cheese will be 
sour also. I am led to believe that a temperature of as near 
SO'' Fahrenheit as could be maintained, would be best for a 
milk-house throughout the year. The dairy is generally situate 
near the milk-house, and fitted up with two set-pans or boilers — 
a large one for scalding the whey, and a smaller one for heat- 
ing water. The " cheese-presses " and " screw '" are kept wiihin 
this room, and the operation of cheese-making is here carried on. 
Some farm-houses are not provided with a dairy, and the cheese 
is then made in the kitchen — this is commonly the case on small 
farms. The salting and drying house '" (often one and the same 
room), if conveniently situated, adjoins the dairy. The cheese is 
placed here on stone or wooden benches, salted externally , and is 
afterwards left so as to dry gradually before being removed to the 
cheese-room. By some dairy-maids, this external sailing is dis- 
pensed with, and the room is then of course only used for drying. 
These offices are all on the ground-floor. In some cases the 
cheese-room is over the dairy, in others over the kitchen, or some 
other room wherein a fire is usually kept, and sometimes, though 
rarelv, over the coichouses or stables. Light and air are invariably 
excluded, either by a curtain or shutters.* The floor is either of 
plaster (gypsum) or boards, but more commonly the latter ; some 
of the larger cheese-rooms are warmed by stoves, or hot air, and 
occasionally, though rarely, by fire-places in the room itself. The 
small cheese-rooms are seldom supplied with artificial heat, ex- 
cept what is gained from the rooms below. Some cheese-rooms are 
occasionally found to be in the summer time too warm, in which 
case the cheese has to be removed for a time to a cooler part of 
the house. This is more generally necessary where the building is 
slated, and exposed to the noon-day sun ; but is seldom or never 
experienced where the roof is of thatch. The size of these offices 
is of course regulated by the extent of the farm ; where 30 cows 
are kept I find them nearly as follows : — 
Yds. Yds. Square Yds. 
Milk-house . . . 6 by 3 or about 18 
Dairy . . . . 6 by 5 „ 30 
Salting and drying-house . 4 by o „ 20 
Cheese-room over dairy and 
drying-house . . 10 by 5 (or 8 by 6) „ 50 
• One reason, amongst others, assigned for this (universal) practice, is 
its tendency to prevent the mischievous effects of the fly. 
