40 
THE OX. 
THE DAIRY. 
The cheese has now to he removed to a warm apartment. If it has not been previously salted, which may have been done 
either by salting the curd, or by rubbing the cheese with salt each time it was taken out of the press, it is now to be salted. To 
this end, it is to be rubbed with salt daily for eight or ten days. It may likewise be washed once or twice with hot water, and 
finally rubbed with butter, so as to soften the external surface, and prevent its cracking. It is then placed in the store-room, on a 
shelf, where it remains until disposed of. It is for a time to be turned daily, and the skin is to be kept clean and soft, by anointing 
and brushing it. The cheese apartment should be moderately cool, and be ventilated without admitting any current of wind. It 
should be kept exceedingly clean, and the walls and other parts should be frequently washed with a solution of chloride of lime, 
so as to destroy effluvia, and prevent the multiplication of insects which deposite their eggs in the cheese. 
When cheese of peculiar richness is required, the practice is to add a farther quantity of cream to the milk to be curdled than 
that which itself produces : thus the cream of one milking is added to the milk of the following one, which is made into curd. By 
this means the milk for each cheese has not only its own cream, but that of the previous milking. There is waste in this practice, 
but the higher price of the cheese compensates the dairyman. In this manner are made the rich cheeses of Stilton, Cottenham, 
and Southam, usually termed cream-cheeses. The process is, after having milked the cows in the morning, to skim off the cream 
of the previous evening, and mix it with the new milk. The runnet being added, the coagulation is allowed to take place in the 
usual manner, with this difference, that the temperature of the milk is kept somewhat lower, and the coagulation more slowly pro¬ 
duced. To retain the cream, too, the whey is more cautiously separated, and in place of the strong pressure of the cheese-press, 
the cheese is pressed with cloths bound round it. In the preparation of the cheese called Stilton, which is the most esteemed of 
this class, the curd, after being formed, is gently lifted out of the vat and placed on a sieve. When the whey is strained off, the 
curd is carefully compressed by the hand till it has become dry and firm, and then placed in a box or mould. It is afterwards set 
on a dry board and bound round with fillets of linen cloth, which are tightened as occasion requires. The ends of the cheese are 
carefully brushed, and when the cloths are removed the sides are treated in the same manner; and this manipulation is continued 
for two or three months. Sometimes the curd is hung up in nets, but the cheeses formed in this way are not so much valued as 
those which are made in moulds. 
Another class of cheeses consists of those which are made after a separation of the cream, usually termed skimmilk cheeses. 
They are less oily, and consequently less valued than the others; but they are nearly equally nutritious, and are largely consumed 
in the recent state by the less opulent classes. They withstand the heat of warm climates better than the richer kinds, are less 
subject to injury from the larvse of insects, and are better suited accordingly to the victualling of ships. They should be made 
in the same manner as the full milk cheeses, with equal attention to the slow coagulation of the milk, to the careful separation of 
the whey, and the gradual pressure on the curd. 
Cheese is produced in almost every part of the United Kingdom; but its quality varies greatly in different districts, according 
to the care with which the manipulation is performed and the skill derived from experience. The manufacture is more especially 
carried on in the country north and west of the line extending from the Wash to Somersetshire. The centre of the principal cheese- 
district of the south-western division of the kingdom, is the county of Gloucester, where the rich vales of the Severn and the Avon 
are depastured by extensive herds of dairy cows. The cheese of Gloucester is of two kinds, the single and double. The first is made 
with new milk in the morning, to which is added the milk of the previous evening deprived of its cream, which is made into butter. 
The single Gloucester, therefore, contains only half the natural cream of the milk ; yet it is so admirably made, that it excels that 
of other districts where the whole cream is consumed. The double Gloucester, the greater part of which is produced in the hun¬ 
dred of Berkley, is made of the milk with all its natural cream. It is the most generally esteemed kind of cheese produced in 
England, possessing all the richness that ought to be required, with a mild and grateful flavour. Although Gloucestershire still 
retains its preeminence, the same kind of cheese is produced in all the neighbouring counties. The Berkley cheeses are pur¬ 
chased by the cheese-factor about Michaelmas : he judges of the quality by the blue colour of the skin appearing through the red 
dye with which their surface is tinged : he used to walk over each cheese; if it yielded to the pressure of the foot, it was said to be 
heaved, and was rejected as unfit for the London market. The Vale of Berkley alone is computed to produce annually from a 
thousand to twelve hundred tons of these unrivalled cheeses. 
From Gloucester the manufacture of cheese, on the large scale, extends into Oxfordshire, and up the Avon into Warwickshire, 
which is computed to produce above twenty thousand tons annually, and into all the neighbouring districts. The county of Somerset 
likewise abounds in dairies, but applied as much to the production of butter as of cheese. The marshes between Bridgewater and 
Cross produce a fine oily cheese, and that of the Vale of Cheddar has something of the flavour of Parmesan. In North Wiltshire 
likewise are many dairies. The cheese is prepared nearly in the same manner as that of Gloucester. It is mild and agreeable : 
the cheeses are small, and being made into fanciful forms, as pine-apples, and the like, are widely distributed in the towns. 
