RECENT EXPERIMENTS BY THE DEPARTMENT. 29 
TRADE CONDITIONS AND PRACTICES. 
Before undertaking the work covered by this report a very careful 
investigation of conditions affecting the cheese industry was made. 
This investigation showed that the practice of putting cheese into cold 
storage before it was cured had become almost universal. Very few 
factories throughout the cheese districts of New York and Wisconsin 
keep the cheese on hand for a longer period than two weeks. This 
means that the ripening process has progressed very little before the 
cheese goes into storage, and the greater part of the curing, if it takes 
place at all, must be done at the low temperature. 
There was, however, within narrow limits, considerable variation in 
the age at which the cheese was placed in storage. Some dealers were 
willing to take it when one week old, while others insisted that it be 
two weeks old. The time varied somewhat, however, with the market 
demands and the season of the year. It was an open secret that at 
certain periods when cheese was scarce and the demand insistent 
cheese would be taken when four da)'s old or even less, though this was 
not put into storage, but as a rule was shipped immediately to the 
consumer. 
The temperatures employed at the different storage houses showed 
considerable variation. It appeared that at some a temperature as 
low as 30° F. was used, while at others the temperature employed was 
slightly above 40° F., a majority ranging from about 34° to 36° F. 
Xo reason could ever be obtained why any one establishment 
employed a particular temperature, the managers of those using the 
lower temperatures simply stating that the temperature was as low as 
possible without danger of freezing the cheese. 
PLAN OF THE WORK. 
In planning for the work in view, the points brought out in previous 
investigations served as a basis for the experiment. As the custom 
of curing cheese in the factory curing room had practically ceased to 
exist, there was no reason for making any particular effort to demon- 
strate the superiority of cold curing over the old method. It seemed 
to have been sufficiently demonstrated both in this country and in 
Canada that a temperature of 50° F. or lower was the most satisfac- 
tory for cheese ripening, so no particular weight was placed on any 
further demonstration of this point, though a few cheeses were carried 
in the factory curing room to show what a long exposure to high tem- 
peratures might develop in a cheese which would otherwise have been 
of a high quality. 
As the temperatures employed by different storage houses varied 
from about 30° to 40° F., two temperatures were selected for our 
work — namely, 32° and 40° F.,and as cheese is placed in storage at 
