27G 
Tlie Worl: of Acidiiij in Cheese-vialcinrj. 
cisely how — acidity in cheese-making is the "master of the 
situation," and his desire is to capture this untrained creature, 
to put a bit in its mouth and to harness it to his yoke, so that he 
may make it draw the product of his cheese-vat quietly and 
steadily to market instead of upsetting it prematurely into the 
ditch. 
It is a rather singular commentary on this fact that not- 
withstanding the importance which the British cheese-maker 
thus attaches to the work of acidity in cheese-making, the litera- 
ture of the art is extremely poor in information regarding it. 
Not only do the few text-books in the English language which 
deal with the theory of cheese-making either ignore the subject 
altogether or treat it in a meagre and confused manner,^ but the 
French and German manuals are almost equally deficient. The 
comprehensive work of \on Klenze is silent in regard to it, and 
even the exhaustive treatise of Fleischmann dismisses it with 
much less consideration than might have been expected. 
It may, therefore, not be unprofitable, in the interests of the 
British cheese-maker, to examine this problem of the influence 
of acidity in cheese-making, with the view of ascertaining in 
what it really consists and how far it is capable of being con- 
trolled ; and the more so as the little that appears to be known 
about it by practical cheese-makers has been acquired in a 
purely empirical manner, and, as is commonly the case in such 
matters, is too often invested by them with an air of mystery 
which is probably proportionate to the obscurity which exists in 
their own minds in regard to it. 
But, before discussing the work of acidity in cheese-making, 
it may not be out of place to say a few words as to the source 
from which acidity in milk is derived, and the influence which 
it exercises on the composition of the milk ; for, unless the 
cheese-maker has at least a general idea on these points he can- 
not deal with this condition of milk with the intelligence which 
is necessary to command success. 
In the preceding number of this Journal a description was 
given (" Acidity in ]\Iilk," page 56) of an appliance by means of 
which the acidity in milk can not only be recognised but its 
amount estimated with suflicient precision for the purposes of 
dairying, and anyone who will provide himself with such an 
appliance, and will take a little trouble to employ it in examin- 
ing milk under different conditions, will soon acquire an amount 
• An exception must be made in favour of the great work of Professor 
Sheldon on Dairy Farming, which, in this, as in most other subjects, is an 
excellent expKjnent of the growing knowledge of the period. Nor must the 
writings of buclaux be overlooked. 
