120 REPORT OF DEPARTMENT OF BACTERIOLOGY 
The general group of acid-forming, liquefying organisms 1s 
represented at practically all times but in such small numbers as to 
suggest that the group exerts little influence upon the ripening 
changes. 
The rate of the ripening process seems to be independent of the 
number of germs present except that in certain cheeses a flora 
tlosely confined to acid-producing forms was coincident with a re- 
tarded rate of ripening. 
There is a lack of satisfactory evidence, either in the results from 
our studies or in those which have preceded them, that any of the 
forms thus far isolated play an important part in the later stages of 
the ripening of normal cheddar cheese. This does not preclude the 
possibility that such evidence may be later produced nor that im- 
portant forms may be found which do not appear upon our present 
cultufe media. 
