New YorRK AGRICULTURAL EXPERIMENT STATION. 55 
I, III and IV were furnished by Mr. H. E. Cook from the factory . 
at Denmark, and cheese II from the factory at Copenhagen, cheeses 
V and IX by Mr. G. Merry from Verona, cheese VII by Mr. 
E. L. Jones from Delevan, while cheeses VIII and X were made 
by our Dairy Expert in our own dairy. © 
RIPENING CONDITIONS. 
The factory-made cheeses were shipped to us by express, usually 
as soon as they were taken from the press, but in a few cases they 
were subjected to a slight delay. They were dipped in hot paraffin 
before they were placed in our curing room. 
The curing room was cooled by the ammonia process and the 
temperature regulated automatically with a daily fluctuation of 
about 3 degrees F. under favorable conditions. Owing to accidents 
to the machinery the temperature varied considerably with some of 
the cheeses. The temperature of ripening is accordingly given in 
connection with each cheese. 
TECHNIQUE OF INVESTIGATION. 
TAKING SAMPLES. 
Samples for analysis were taken when the cheese was ready to 
go into the curing room and thereafter at stated intervals. In tak- 
ing a sample a square inch of the layer of paraffin and the rind was 
first removed with a sterile knife, then a plug about four inches in 
length was drawn with a carefully flamed and cooled cheese tryer. 
Von Freudenreich and Harrison and Connell’ have shown that the 
bacteria are not evenly distributed in the different layers of the 
cheese and in order to get a representative sample we have followed 
the suggestion of Harrison & Connell and used a number of thin 
slices from the different parts of the plug. One gram of these 
slices was weighed out on a flamed copper foil, using a sensitive 
balance. The sample was then triturated in a flamed mortar with 
Io grams of sterile granulated sugar or finely ground sterilized 
quartz. (Sugar was used with the first five cheeses and’ quartz with 
the others. Sugar is preferable in that it goes into solution when 
the ground mass is diluted with water, thereby facilitating the trans- 
fer of representative portions to the plates. This same property 


* Harrison, F. C. and Connell, W. T. A comparison of the bacterial 
content of cheese cured at different temperatures. Cent. Bakt., 11 Abt., 11° 
637-657. 1903. 
