PRACTICAL PAPERS—THE CHEESE PRODUCT. 
203 
THE CHEESE PKODUCT OF 1869, 
FROM A COMMERCIAL POINT OF VIEW. 
From an address before the American Dairymen’s Association, 
BY JOHN M. WEBB, Esq,, OF NEW YORK. 
THE SEASON IN AMERICA. 
The season of 1868-69 wound up with stocks of all descrip¬ 
tions of cheese more completely exhausted than was ever be¬ 
fore known, both in this country and Great Britain. There 
was a very eager demand for new cheese, and tempting prices 
were offered to induce early deliveries. The first shipments 
from this side did not meet with much favor; many of the 
dairies very badly skimmed, and none showed richness of 
quality. Still the scarcity was so great that even those were 
sold at full prices, but they gave neither profit nor satisfaction 
to those who handled them. Your May make of cheese was 
unusually fine, and found eager buyers, but at such high pri¬ 
ces, as to involve a loss to all concerned. Your June make 
was not nearly so good as that of May, its great defect being 
its limpness or weakness of curd and want of solidity. These 
cheeses did not stand the passage across the Atlantic at all 
well. Many dairies that appeared solid and fine when inspect¬ 
ed in New York before shipment, showed great looseness and 
weakness when they arrived at their destination. In fact, I 
never remember the cheese changing their character on the 
Atlantic passage to the same extent as did the make of last 
June. Perhaps this is partly to be accounted for by the fact, 
that owing to the keenness of the English demand, prices 
were extreme, and shippers were willing to take green and half 
cured cheese. Dairymen, therefore, had every inducement to 
