906 
[July, 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
Notes on Cheese Making. 
The more solid part of milk consists mainly 
of oily matter (butter,) and a substance named 
caseine, the principal ingredient in cheese. To 
make a good article of cheese for the table, 
requires that both the butter and the caseine be 
retained, and the watery portion or whey be 
wholly pressed out. Cheese can be made, as 
every farmer’s wife knows, of sour milk from 
which all the cream has been removed, or from 
buttermilk. The solid part or caseine is easily 
separated from the whey by heating, and it is 
often prepared in this manner under the name 
of “pot-cheese,” or “ cottage cheese.” In order, 
however, to make even this palatable, it is nec¬ 
essary to work in with it* a portion of butter. 
Much of the cheese sent to market has been 
made from skimmed milk, and its toughness 
aud want of flavor are in proportion to the 
amount of cream which has been removed from 
the milk. Some specimens might almost be 
replaced with India rubber, or gutta perclia. 
It follows that to manufacture the best cheese, 
the cows should have good feed from which to 
elaborate rich milk. As butter readily receives 
any foreign flavor, pastures should be free from 
weeds, many of which impart an unpleasant 
taste to the milk aud its products. All things 
considered, timothy and clover, either white or 
red, are the best staples from which to manu¬ 
facture cheese or butter. 
In making cheese it is desirable to add some 
substance to the milk to curdle it, or separate 
the solid portions from the whey, before the 
oily part or cream shall have risen, as it can 
never again be mingled with the caseine so in¬ 
timately as it exists in the fresh milk. Various 
acids will effect this; the only one now used is 
that found in the fourth stomach of the calf, 
which consists of the gastric juice secreted by 
the coats of the stomach. Much of the excel¬ 
lence of the cheese depends upon the proper 
preparation of this article. It should be from 
a perfectly healthy calf, from one to six weeks 
old—about four weeks is thought to be the best 
age. When the animal is first killed, the stomach 
is opened and emptied of its contents, but not 
scraped or rinsed, as this would remove some 
of the gastric juice. It should be well salted 
and dried on a stick bent to its shape, in which 
form it may be kept in a dry place for a year or 
more. To prepare it for use, an ordinary sized 
rennet is placed in a gallon of soft water warm¬ 
ed to about ninety degrees, in which it is churn¬ 
ed or rubbed occasionally for twenty four hours. 
After the rennet is removed, it may be dried, 
salted, and used again. To the rennet liquor is 
added as much salt as it will dissolve; it is 
then strained, and kept in tight vessels in a cool 
place to be used as wanted. A gill of this liquor 
will curdle thirteen to fourteen gallons of milk. 
It is desirable in making cheese to have the 
milk all drawn from the cows at a single milk¬ 
ing, but when this is not convenient, the even¬ 
ing and morning milkings may be used to¬ 
gether. When this is clone, set the evening 
milk in pans in a cool place, in the morning 
skim off the cream and add twice its quantity 
of hot water to raise the temperature to about 
100° Fahrenheit, and stir until the whole is well 
mixed. Then add it, with the milk from which 
it was taken, to the morning milk, stir the 
whole together, and proceed as with a single 
milking. It greatly diminishes the labor of 
cheese making, and aids in securing a good 
article, to employ an apparatus specially con¬ 
trived for heating the milk. There are several 
such, which consist mainly of a milk vat with 
double bottom and sides, the space between 
to be filled with water, to which heat is to be 
applied, thus avoiding danger from scorch¬ 
ing, which would spoil the flavor of the cheese. 
The milk being ready, heat is applied to raise 
the temperature to about 90° Fahrenheit, when 
the rennet liquor is to be introduced and stirred 
until thoroughly mixed. In from forty to fifty 
minutes a firm curd should be formed. The 
separated whey is now to be drawn off with a 
faucet to within about an inch of the bottom of 
the tub, after which the curd is cut through per¬ 
pendicularly and horizontally, with a wide 
bladed knife made for the purpose, into pieces 
about half an inch square. It is then to be re¬ 
moved to the strainer, which is usually placed 
in a basket, and set over a tub to allow the 
whey to drain out. After draining, it is return¬ 
ed to the vat, the whey first drawn added to it, 
and the temperature raised to about 100° Fah¬ 
renheit, to cook it before salting and pressing. 
It should be continually stirred until this pro¬ 
cess is finished, which is known by the curd be¬ 
coming elastic, and breaking touglily with a sort 
of creaking noise. The whey is then drawn off, 
the curd allowed to cool, and salt added at the 
rate of one pound to thirty pounds of curd, to 
be worked into it thoroughly by hand. 'When 
the mass is fully cooled, it is to be pressed. The 
curd is placed in a clean linen strainer, confin¬ 
ed by a hoop of proper size, and the press grad¬ 
ually applied to it, the pressure to be contin¬ 
ued from three to six hours, according to the 
size of the cheese. It should then be turned 
again and pressed heavily for twenty four hours 
or more, when it is ready to be bandaged and 
laid upon the shelf. The bandage is simply a 
piece of heavy white cotton drawn around the 
circumference, and lapping over the top and 
bottom some two inches; it is kept in place by 
stitching with coarse thread. The cheese should 
then be laid upon a shelf broad enough to sus¬ 
tain its whole circumference, rubbed over with 
common butter, or that article mixed with whey 
butter, with a little cayenne pepper added to 
repel flies; turn daily until ripened. The 
temperature of the room where cheeses are first 
stored, should be kept up to about 80°. Of 
course the method here detailed admits of con¬ 
siderable variation, but these directions carefully 
obsei'ved, together with cleanliness in all the ope¬ 
rations, will secure an article which will always 
find a ready market at good prices. * 
--«*►-*- -> O- - - -- 
The Cow-Milker Again. 
This instrument which received such a large 
share of attention at the International Exhibi¬ 
tion in London, and which it is said realized 
for its proprietor a very handsome sum by the 
sale of rights, did not entirely escape criticism 
from practical men. The editor of the Scottish 
Quarterly Journal, not content with merely in¬ 
specting the Yankee invention, and witnessing 
its operation when worked by others, made sev¬ 
eral trials of the apparatus, using it with his own 
hands and thus speaks of it: “ At first we ex¬ 
perienced some difficulty in using it. It is not 
as easy as might be supposed, to fit the finger- 
pieces on the teats air-tight; and when they 
are so fitted on, a restive animal is liable to 
throw the whole out of gear. We attempted 
the milking of three cows on the first trial. 
From one which was milking from 5 to 51 
quarts at a meal, tve obtained 41 quarts; another, 
which has very uneven teats, we could not milk 
at all; and from the third, which was only 
milking 21 quarts at a meal, we were only able 
to obtain a little more than a quart. All our 
subsequent trials have been attended with sim¬ 
ilar results. The conclusions to which we have 
arrived in reference to this machine, are:— 
1. It will not extract all the milk from cows. 
If it should be found to answer in every other 
respect this is no fatal objection to its use, as the 
strippings could be milked by hand. 2. Cows 
that have good teats, well set in the'udder, can 
be milked to within half a quart to a quart of 
their full milk. 3. Cows whose teats are un¬ 
even can with difficulty be milked. 4. We 
doubt very much if any amount of experience 
and preserverance will overcome the difficulty 
of milking kicking or restive cows.” 
—-——• - ->«» -- — - - 
For the American Agriculturist. 
Improvement of Agricultural Exhibitions. 
Agricultural Exhibitions should be something 
more than mere shows to excite and gratify cu¬ 
riosity. In conducting them, this has been the 
principal motive apparent to too great an extent, 
whether or not designed by those having them 
in charge. Of what practical value is it to a 
cultivator to look upon a bullock fattened to 
unwieldy proportions, or a beet or pumpkin 
grown to monstrosity ? Such displays, it is true, 
call forth exprassions of wonder, and are inter¬ 
esting as being out of the ordinary line, but for 
all practical purposes there would be equal 
benefit in examining Barnum’s wooly horse. 
At the Exhibition of a County Agricultural As¬ 
sociation held last year, and attended by the 
writer, the most instructive feature was a col¬ 
lection of samples of wheat, accompanied in 
each instance with a statement of the kind, 
time of sowing, method of treatment, period of 
ripening, and yield per acre. There was mate¬ 
rial enough in that corner for hours of profita¬ 
ble study, and a few knowing ones were busy 
there taking notes for future use. Without 
doubt many of their crops the present year will 
show that a most profitable day was spent at 
the exhibition. We insist that each article ex¬ 
hibited should be in itself an epitome of some 
valuable facts for cultivators, and that it should 
be accompanied with such written notes that 
the whole story could be readily gathered by 
the observers. It is comparatively easy to fit 
up a show specimen according to present meth¬ 
ods. Plant a few hills of pumpkins on ground 
expressly prepared for the occasion. Select the 
most vigorous vine, leave only the most prom¬ 
ising sample of fruit, prune the rampant growth, 
dose with liquid manure, and ultimately a mon¬ 
ster may be the result. But who thinks this 
would pay in ordinary practice? And so of 
other agricultural productions. It may not bo 
so attractive, but it is far more worthy attention 
to carefully conduct an experiment which, if 
successful, may be profitably repeated, and ex¬ 
hibit its results, and the details by which they 
were reached. It is pleasant and harmless 
amusement nowand then to produce and exhib¬ 
it articles of unusual proportions, but it is be¬ 
neath the dignity of cultivators to allow such 
displays to be the chief attractions at their ex¬ 
hibitions. To a large extent the visitors at ex¬ 
hibitions are responsible for the mismanagement 
now objected to. They attend the annual agri¬ 
cultural gathering more with a view to sight¬ 
seeing, than of seeking improvement, and man¬ 
agers feel compelled to cater to their taste in or¬ 
der to raise the requisite funds for the support 
of the institution. Hence, the stimulus of prizes 
