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1)0MJ£STIC ANIllAI.S. 
air is essential. The cheeses are in perfection in about six months, and 
will keep two years. A quantity of elastic fluid is disengaged in tho 
ripening, and forms those round eyes which are a peculiar feature in 
these cheeses. The smaller and rounder the eyes, the better the cheese 
is reckoned. They should contain a clear salt liquor, which is called 
the tears; when these dry up, the cheese loses its flavor. 
In Cheshire the making of cheese is carried on in great perfection, 
and the greatest pains are taken to extract every particle of whey. For 
this purpose, the curd is repeatedly broken and mixed, the cheeses are 
much pressed, and placed in wooden boxes, which have holes bored 
into them. Through these holes sharp skewers are stuck into the cheese 
in every direction, so that no particle of whey can remain in the curd. 
The elastic matter formed also escapes through these channels, and the 
whole cheese is a solid mass without holes, which in this cheese would 
be looked upon as a great defect. The salt is intimately mixed with 
the curd, and not merely rubbed on the outside. This checks internal 
fermentation, and prevents the formation of elastic matter. 
Gloucester and Somersetshire cheeses are similarly made, with this 
difference, that the curd is not so often broken or the cheese skewered ; 
and a portion of the cream is generally abstracted to make butter. 
After the curd has been separated from the whey, and is broken fine, 
warm water is poured over it, for the purpose of washing out any re- 
maining whey, or perhaps to dissolve any portion of butter which may 
have separated before the rennet had coagulated the milk. 
Stilton cheese is made by adding the cream of the preceding even- 
ing’s milk to the morning’s milking. The cream should be intimately 
incorporated with the new milk; great attention should be paid to the 
temperature of both, as much of the quality of the cheese depends on 
this part of the process. To make this cheese in perfection, as much 
depends on the management of the cheese after it is made as on the 
richness of the milk. Each dairy-woman has some peculiar method 
which she considers the best; and it is certain that there is the greatest 
difference between cheeses made in contiguous dairies. The rennet 
should be very pure and sweet. When the milk is coagulated, the whole 
curd is taken out, drained on a sieve, and very moderately pressed. It 
is then put into a shape in the form of a cylinder, eight or nine inches 
in diameter, the axis of which is longer than the diameter of the base. 
When it is sufficiently firm, a cloth or tape is wound round it to prevent 
its breaking, and it is set out on a shelf. It is occasionally powdered 
with flour, and plunged into hot water. This hardens the outer coat, 
and favors the internal fermentation which ripens it. Stilton cheese is 
generally preferred when a green mould appears in its texture. To ac- 
celerate this, pieces of a mouldy cheese are sometimes inserted into 
holes made for the purpose by the scoop, called a taster, and wine or ale 
is poured over for the same purpose ; but the best cheeses do not re- 
quire this, and are in perfection when the inside becomes soft like but- 
ter, without any appearance of mouldincss. In making very rich cheeses, 
the whey must be allowed to run off slowly, because, if it were forced 
rapidly, it might carry off a great portion of the fat of the cheese. This 
happens more or less in every mode of making cheese. To collect 
