178 
Account of the Process employed 
have holes to receive the skewers, especially the binder, 
which holes are seldom more than one inch from each 
other. As the press stands close to a wall, only one side 
of the cheese can be skewered at a time ; therefore as 
many skewers are stuck in different directions as conve- 
niently may, leaving as many holes unskewered as are 
skewered, to give an opportunity of changing the holes. 
The business of skewering continues till the next morn- 
ing at six o’clock, and in that time the oftener they are 
shifted the better; every second time of shifting them 
the cheese is turned half way round in the press, to come 
at the other side of it. In half an hour from the time 
the cheese is first put into the press, it is taken out again 
and turned in the vat into another clean cloth. At this 
time the edges of the cheese are pared off, if they have 
become sharp under the press ; but as the vats are now 
usually made with the angles rounded, the paring is ren- 
dered unnecessary, the vat being wiped dry before the 
cheese is returned to it. 
When the cheese is thus the first time taken out of the 
press, it is the custom of some places to put it into warm, 
and in others into hot whey, where it stands an hour or 
more. It is them taken out, wiped dry, and after it has 
stood till cool, it is returned back to the press. This is 
done with a view to hardening its coat, that it may stand 
the better. At six o’clock in the evening the cheese is 
again turned in the vat into another clean cloth. At this 
and the former turning, some dairy women prick the up- 
per surface of the cheese all over, an inch or two deep, 
before it is replaced under the press, with a view of pre- 
venting blisters. At six o’clock in the morning it is 
again turned in the vat, with a clean cloth as before. 
The skewers are now laid aside. When the next day’s 
cheese is ready for the press, the former one is again 
turned in the vat with a clean cloth, and put under ano 
