SOUTHERN CULTIVATOR. 
141 
Bible was seriously apprehended by many educated men 
who took a hasty and superficial view of what appeared 
contradictory, or incompatible. It is not my puipose to 
discuss this feature of science ; while I have thought it 
not amiss at the commencement of my first course of lec- 
tures to indicate in the fewest words possible my profound 
regard for the Christian religion. In teaching geology in i 
connection with agriculture, I have occasionally met with 
pious men who feared that the acknowledged truths of this 
science in reference to the age of our planet, and of the 
many extinct genera of living beings which have inhabit- 
ed it, might weaken the popular behei in the account Oi 
the creation as given in the first cnapters of Genesis. I 
need hardly say that it is the Interpretation, not the Text, 
that fails to harmonize with geology. 
Horticulture, Frivit-cuUnrc, and Landsccqyc Gardening 
are branches of rural affairs upon which something should 
be said in a comprehensive survey of our profession.— 
Each is worthy of a separate professorship ; and horticul- 
ture is sometimes divided and subdivided until the florist 
who cultivates roses is not expected to have any profes- 
sional knowledge of dahlias, japonicas, or other flowering 
plants. All I can hope to do is to state clearly and cor- 
rectly the principles which ought to govern operations of 
this character, and name the best authors who have writ- 
ten on these subjects. As practical reformers, gardeners 
and fruit growers have rendered mankind an invaluable 
service by showing how much excellent food may be rais- 
ed on a single acre of ground. This has encouraged 
farmers to till less land, and manure and cultivate it much 
better than they formerly did. As population increases, 
and a community attains -to the age of centuries, forest- 
culture and landscape gardening become not less useful 
than fashionable. In a country where the natural forests 
are attacked and destroyed with perfect recklessness, the 
planting and culture of trees for timber, as well as for 
shade, ornaments and their fruits, will sooner force them- 
selves upon public attention. Where land is so abundant 
and cheap as it is in this great State, forest- culture and the 
formation of beautiful parks, lawns, and lovely groves, 
-ought to be encouraged by general applause and the prem- 
ums of all agricultural societies. 
Georgia has every natural advantage, wealth and popu- 
lation enough, to be made into something like a paradise 
to live in. Its agricultural and horticultural resources 
have never been investigated with that degree of care, 
caution and patience which equally avoids exaggeration 
on the one hand, and a hasty underestimate on the other. 
Tacts are sober realities ; and they should be soberly con- 
sidered by all who would understand their true mean- 
ing. 
It is desirable to collect specimens of different soils, 
marls, greensand, rocks and other minerals, from different 
parts of the State, and the South, for analysis, and to form 
a Museum in connection with the Terrell Professorship in 
the University ; and I respectfully solicit the assistance of 
all who may attend these Lectures in procuring fair sam- 
ples of earths, fertilizers, agricultural plants, fruits and 
keds for the use of this new Department. Until a suit- 
able Text Book (on which I have spent some years) can 
be corrected for the press and printed, we shall have to 
use Prof Johnston’s Lectures on Agricultural Chemistry 
and Geology as the least objectionable of any in the Eng- 
lish languuge. Boussingault's Rural Economy, Nor- 
ton’s Elements of Scientific Agriculture, and Hitchcock s 
‘ Geology, are works of an elementary character, which 
may be studied with profit. The College Library, I am 
pleased to know, contains many of the latest and most 
reliable authorities in the natural sciences, suen as Lyell’s 
Principles of Geology, Owen’s Comparative Anatomy, 
Mulder’s Chemistry of Vegetable and Animal Physiolo- 
gy, Rose’s Chemical Manipulations, and others, to whose 
teachings I shall often have occasion to refer. By making 
a wise and successful use of the means of improvement 
which we already possess, we may reasonably hope that 
the Legislature, or some noble friend of agriculture, will 
give to the University of Georgia funds sufficient to pur- 
chase stock and equip a farm for experimental purposes, 
that Practice and Science may together develop and de- 
monstrate the best system of Rural Economy for the Plant- 
ing States. 
THE PRODUCTION OE CHEESE. 
Having been reared on a dairy farm, the I’ememberance 
of sweet, delicious curds, and the practice of the ai*t and 
mysteries of cheese-making, render the themes pleasant to 
the writer, if not inviting to the reader. All the nobler 
animals which God has created on this planet belong to 
the grand Mammalia family ; and the words mamma, and 
mammalia suggest the pecular importance of Milk in the 
economy of nature. Science teaches us that cheese in 
milk is liquified flesh ; and as such, it is an exceedingly 
valuable product, and one that deserves far more attention 
than it receives from those who ought to study and un- 
derstand every principle of domestic economy. Casein, 
curd, or cheese, is soluble in water, and in milk, which is 
seven-eights water, by the aid of soda, or some other alka- 
li. So soon as lactic acid is formed in recently drawn 
milk, it neutralizes the soda that renders cheese soluble; 
and thus the fluid is changed into curds and vohey. When 
a child, calf or pig takes new milk into its stomach, the 
gastric juice, which has an acid reaction, and in which 
muriatic acid is often detected, soon coagulates the dis- 
solved curd preparatory for its digestion. Observing this 
phenomenon in the stomachs of all animals, the keepers 
of milch kine, and other domesticated animals giving 
milk, were early led to use the stomachs of young calves 
and pigs to separate the curds known to exist in this copi- 
ous secretion from its watery part. The Mosaic Law, 
however, regai'ds rennet as meat ; and the Jews were for- 
bidden to mingle meat with their milk. As all vegetable 
acids will neutralize soda ; the Hebrews were able to 
make cheese without rennets of any kind. They used a 
plant called “ladies bedstraw” ( for the pur- 
pose indicated. “Butter- wort”, {Pinguicula vulgaris) also 
yields an acid juice, much used in some countries for 
cheese-making. In Holland milk is now generally coagu- 
lated by muriatic acid in preference to the use of rennet, 
which is there well understood; because the acid imparts a 
sharp and agreeable taste to the cheese, which is not at- 
tainable by any other known means. The variety of 
tastes, and of cheeses is almost infinite; and a volume 
might be written on the subject without exhausting it. 
To produce cheese of the very best quality, one needs, 
1st, the right kind of soil and climate; 2nd, the right sort 
of grass and other food for cows, from which alone the 
best milk is elaborated ; 3rd, good rennctswh.\d\ are made 
only by those who are familiar with their preparation; 
4th, skill in all the manipulations of keeping, warming, 
and coagulating milk, cutting and breaking up the curd, 
dipping off the whey, pressing, turning, and oiling the 
cheese, and of keeping the cheese-room sweet, clean, and 
free from blowing flies, as well as all utensils perfectly ex- 
empt from impurities, which will not fail to injure both 
the reputation and the cheese of the dairy-maid. 
In his “Rural Economy of Norfolk” (where excellent 
cheese is manufactured) Marshal says that rennets are 
prepared as follows : “Take a calf’s bag, maw, or stom- 
ach; and having taken out the curd contained therein, 
wash it clean, and salt it thoroughly inside and out, leav-. 
ing a white coat of salt over every part of it. Put it into 
an earthen jar, or other vessel and let it stand threie or 
four days ; in which time it will have formed the^.salt and 
its own natural juice into a pickle^ Take 4 
