1866.] 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
Q79 
Walks and Talks on the Farm.— No. 32. 
We have been trying our hand at Cheese Making. 
It has long been a favorite theory of mine that we 
can make as good cheese in the wheat region as 
they do in the dairy districts. I think so still, but 
a few days’ dabbling at cheese making, with no con¬ 
veniences, may well deter any one from adopt¬ 
ing it as a business.—First we wanted a cheese 
hoop. I was sent to the city to get one, but 
found it no easy task. “Have you any Cheese 
Hoops,” I asked at the store where it was said they 
would most likely be found. “Yes, Sir,” and 
thereupon they handed me—a peck measure with 
the bottom knocked out! This was the nearest 
approach to a cheese hoop that could be found in 
Rochester. I went to a cooper who it was said 
made them. But it seems he got up half a dozen 
five years ago and could not dispose of them, and 
gave up the business in disgust. He had none and 
would not make me one. So I took the peck 
measure, .and started for home with pleasing anti¬ 
cipations of eating some nice home-made cheese 
next fall with a good old fashioned .apple pie, made 
in a deep dish with no crust at the bottom! 
Now for the cheese. Here is the milk, here is 
the rennet, and there is your hoop. But where is 
the cheese tub ? The thrifty Scotch say, “keep a 
thing seven years and you will find a use for it.” 
Some six years ago I got a Metropolitan Washing 
Machine, which has been in the lumber room 
ever since. It was voted to be just the thing 
for a cheese tub. So it was brought down, cleaned 
and scalded, the night’s milk skimmed and poured 
in, and the morning’s milk added. This m<ade the 
temperature 74°. The rennet was added, and in 
about an hour the cheese “came”—sweet and 
tender as could be desired. We were jubilant. 
Next the curd had to be cut, in order to allow the 
whey to separate. In the dairy districts they have 
a nice knife with six or eight long, narrow 
blades set half an inch or go apart, which, be¬ 
ing drawn slowly through the curd, accomplishes 
the object in a few minutes. In the English dairies 
they use a tin hoop, about eighteen inches in di¬ 
ameter, with wires stretched across, and a wooden 
handle in the center. This is pressed down very 
gently and cuts the curd into small pieces. But we 
were obliged to use a long carving knife and a tin 
skimmer, with a free use of that original imple¬ 
ment, the hand. We managed to get the curd par¬ 
tially separated, and dipped off carefully a portion 
of the whey; then cut the curd of one half the 
tub and placed it on the other hsilf, and in this w.ay 
got off more whey. Slowly the work progressed, 
but at last nearly all the whey drained off. 
It was then placed in a cloth and put under a 
smiill lever press and pressed gently for an hour. 
It was then taken out, broken up fine and salted. 
Now for the hoop. The curd more than fills it! 
What is to be done? A tin fillet is put round the 
cheese and inside the hoop. This is the English 
way. As the cheese is compressed, the tin fillet 
sinks down inside the hoop .and the curd is pressed. 
So far BO good. But thinking that our hand press 
was not powerful enough, and recollecting that Dr. 
Voelcker in his analyses of English and American 
cheese, found that one trouble v^ith our cheese was 
that the “ whey was not sufficiently extracted,” we 
put the cheese under a cider press. This brought 
out the whey; but putting on a little more pres¬ 
sure, the so-called hoop, or peck measure, burst, 
and the fat was iu the fire ! 
Another peck measure was got, and using less 
pressure the cheese was finally made. I have no 
doubt that the cheese will be good, but the shape 
is not quite orthodox. It is ten inches in diameter 
and eight inches high, and weighs 273^ lbs. 
This is from one day’s milk of lOj^ cows. (We 
keep 11 cows, but one of them is a farrow.) And 
you must recollect that the night’s milk was skim¬ 
med. Last week, before we commenced to make 
cheese, we got 79X lbs. of butter--^actual weight, 
not guessed at. This is a little over 11 lbs. a day. 
Now we get from a day’s milk 27)^ lbs. of cheese, 
and probably four or five lbs. of butter besides 
from the night’s milk—or say 192 lbs. of cheese and 
30 lbs. of butter per week. At the present relative 
price of butter and cheese it certainly must be 
more profitable to make cheese than butter. But 
cheese m<aking will not become gener.al in the 
wheat region, until we have a good cheese vat, 
proper hoops, presses, and good arrangements for 
doing the work cxpeditiouslj’. Those who judge 
of the labor of ordinary cheese making from a single 
trial with one or two cheeses, with no conveniences, 
will not be likely to go into the business. 
Determined to give the matter a further trial, 
and feeling dissatisfied with the peck measure, I 
went again to the city and succeeded in finding a 
good cheese hoop. But it w.as sixteen inches in 
diameter, and if we made a cheese every d.ay they 
would be too thin. So we “ set the curd” one day 
and made it, together with the curd of the next 
day, into a cheese. We make the curd the first 
day precisely as if we were going to make a cheese, 
press it a little under a hand press and let it lie till 
the next day, when it is mixed carefully with the 
new curd, put in the large hoop and pressed. This 
gives us a cheese 16 inches iu diameter and about 
inches high, weighing about 56 lbs. This is not 
a bad shape, and it is less Labor than making a 
cheese every day, and besides, it gives you the use 
of the press for two d.ays, which is undoubtedly 
better than pressing for only one d.ay. 
Our cows give fully one third more butter this 
year th.an last, due solely to good feeding and warm 
quarters in the winter. They were cows I bought 
with the farm. They looked well, but proved to be 
poor milkers. They had been suffered to go dry 
.about the 1st of November, under the impression 
that milking them in the winter would seriously 
injure them the coming summer. And I h.ave no 
doubt that there is considerable truth in this idea, 
provided the cows iu the winter have nothing but 
corn stallcs .and straw, and are not stabled. But if 
they are fed liberally, they may be milked, not only 
without injury, but with positive advantage. It 
fiivors the habit of secreting milk. Till within six 
weeks or two months of calving, a good cow, with 
plenty of rich food, can give four or five quarts of 
milk per day, and will still be able to secure milk 
enough for the calf. She will eat and assimilate 
more food, and will get the habit of secreting more 
milk. I believe there is no better way of restoring 
the milking qualities of cows that have degenerated 
from poor management. I gave my cows three 
quarts each of corn meal a day, and an .abundant 
supply of corn stalks and straw. Instead of letting 
them go dry in November, I kept them stabled in 
cold weather, and they gave more milk, or rather 
they made more butter, after we commenced to 
feed grain, in November and December, than they 
did in August and September. I milked some qjf 
them till within six weeks of calving. This is per¬ 
haps too much—ten weeks would be better. The 
cows, after we stopped milking, fleshed up raiJidly, 
and many were the predictions that the corn meal 
would spoil them for milk. But it did not. They 
give more milk th.an ever before, and it is certainly 
very much richer. The prospects now are that for 
the year commencing the 1st of last November till 
the 1st of next November they will give as much 
again butter as they ever gave in a year before. So 
much for good feeding in winter. We weigh every 
pound of butter made, and I feel confident that 
this opinion will prove-corrcct. I h.ave not yet fed 
meal this summer, but shall do so the moment 
there is any indications of a falling off in butter. 
In fact I should feed meal now if I had my build¬ 
ings conveniently arranged for the purpose. I have 
not the slightest doubt that it would pay to give 
each cow two quarts of corn and pea meal a day. 
If twenty bushels of corn a year will double, or 
even add one third to, the .amount of butter and 
cheese m.ade by a cow, it is easy to figure whether 
it is profitable or not. I do not say they will not 
eat as much grass and fodder as if they were not 
fed meal. The more food they will eat the better, 
provided it is turned into butter and cheese. 
Mr. Judd of the Agriculturist came home with me 
yesterday from the S. S. Convention at Rochester. 
He is a m.an of untiring energy, and like others of 
his temper.ament is rather inclined to apply the spur 
to those of us who are of an easier disposition and 
move slower. “Why don’t you pull out the wild 
mustard from the barle)%” he .asked, as we ap¬ 
proached the field that I had underdrained and 
sowed so early. It is certainly the best crop of 
barley ever raised on this farm, but these few yel¬ 
low heads of eharlock annoyed him .as much as a 
blotch of ink would on one of the be.autiful engrav¬ 
ings in the Agriculturist. “ When he was a boy on 
the home farm, they went over large fields and pul¬ 
led up every dock and cut off every thistle in the 
growing grain, and in a few years scarcely a weed 
was to be found on the farm. ” I do not doubt it. But 
it is one thing for the farmer or his sons or with 
cheap help to do such work, and entirely another 
to pay §1.25 a d.ay to do it. It is an argument in 
favor of small farms. The high price of Labor meets 
us at every step, .and moulds our .agriculture. I 
have over thirty acres of barley, and it would take 
some time to go over it and pull out every weed. 
This work must be done the year previous when 
the laud is in corn, and if the land is not thoroughly 
clean, pLant it to corn again, and two crops of corn 
in succession thoroughly cultivated will go far to 
destroy all the weeds. Then if any escape, it would 
doubtless be well to go over the field when in grain 
the next season and pull out the few weeds that 
have escaped. But with much other work pressing 
—with planting, cultivating, hoeing, and a thous¬ 
and and one little matters to attend to, I plead 
for gentle criticism if a few things are neglected. 
One of my neighbors hearing th.at Mr. Judd was 
coming, wanted to see the editor of the Agricul¬ 
turist, and asked me to drive him over. “ Tell him,” 
he said, “ that I will show him the best seventy-five 
acre farm he ever saw.” Is not that a happy dis¬ 
position? Many people are just .as well satisfied 
with themselves and their farms, but are not so 
outspoken. He and the Doctor have great times 
when they get together. We won’t call it boasting, 
for what they say is strictly true. “ I have got a 
hog that will dress seven hundred by next Christ¬ 
mas,” s.ays the Doctor—and he has. He gives it 
corn meal and sour milk, and stirs it with a red hot 
iron. He thinks this very important. He is raising 
a calf that he feeds in the same way, and it is really 
astonishing how fast it grows. In reality, however, 
it is not so astonishing after all, for plenty of good 
food, comfortable quarters, regular feeding, and 
daily petting, will m.ake any well bred young animal 
grow. 1 like to see a man pet an animal. He ean 
hardly fail to feed well, and in nine cases out of ten 
the heifer calves raised by such a man will prove to 
be good milkers. It is certainly a great mistake 
not to feed calves well. Push them forward for the 
first year as r.apidly as possible. Let them come in 
at two years old. Feed high, and if well bred, you 
are almost sure of getting a “ deep milker.” 
A farmer cannot make a greater mistake than to 
starve or even stint a young animal. But it is very 
common. If I were buying young pigs I would 
give double the price for a litter at two months old 
that had been well fed and gradually weaned than 
I would for a litter that had been negleeted. As I 
told you last month, I bought two litters of young 
pigs. One litter w.as h.alf Suffolk and quarter 
Chester White, the other was “Native.” Both lit¬ 
ters had received ordinary treatment—that is they 
were half starved! I paid nearly as much again 
for the half-bred Suffolks as for the others, for the 
sake of the experiment. I fed both litters .alike, 
giving them sour milk and a little corn meal. So 
far, the “Natives” are decidedly ahead. My own 
half-bred Suffolks, that were fed with rich food 
from the day they were born. Peart, the butcher, 
pronounced “the best pigs he ever saw,” and he 
offered me 12 cents per lb. for them dressed weight. 
Not wishing to dress them I offered to take §30 a 
piece for them, and he took me up! I h.ave not yet 
learned how much they dressed, but I have no 
doubt the whole litter will average 250 lbs. dressed 
weight. They were not eight months old! I think 
it would not be easy to make a litter of common 
pigs do as welL The reason that the half-bred Suf* 
