quantity by excessive manipulation, and by vio- 
lent breaking and thrusting ; and hence the whey 
is usually so oleaceous as to yield a quantity of 
butter, and the cheese is proportionally impover- 
ished in all its fatty qualities. 
Old Fuller says, respecting the cheeses of Che- 
shire, “This county doth afford the best cheese for 
quantity and quality, and yet their cows are not, 
as in other shires, housed in the winter ; so that 
it may seem strange that the hardiest kine do 
make the tenderest cheese. Some essayed in 
vain to make the like in other places, though 
from thence they fetched both their kine and 
dairy-maids; it seems they should have fetched 
their ground too, wherein is surely some occult 
excellency in this kind, or else so good cheese 
will not be made: I hear not the like commen- 
dation of the butter in this county; and per- 
chance these two commodities are like stars of a 
different horizon, so that the elevation of the one 
to eminency is the depression of the other.” 
Gloucester cheese is characterized by richness 
of composition, combined piquancy and mildness 
of flavour, such a waxy texture as permits it to 
be cut into thin slices without crumbling, and 
such a retentive diffusion of its oily matter as 
occasions it, in the process of toasting, to be 
thoroughly softened without being burned. Its 
smooth, uniform, waxy texture appears to pro- 
ceed from proper temperature in coagulation, and 
from judicious and careful treatment of the curd. 
Double Gloucester, or what is technically called 
“the best-making” cheese, ought always, like 
true Dunlop, to be made of pure unskimmed- 
milk; but, in some large dairies, it is the pro- 
duce of two milkings, the one used pure and 
| whole, and the other deprived of sufficient cream 
and butter to supply the domestic wants of the 
household. Single Gloucester is very varied in 
quality, and may either be sheer skimmed-milk 
cheese, or a manufacture from equal portions of 
skimmed and unskimmed, or an intermediate 
article, with its main substance of skimmed-milk, 
and its qualifying substance of unskimmed. The 
worst kinds of it are prepared from a milk, de- 
prived to the utmost, and by every kind of effort, 
of its butyraceous matter. In some Gloucester 
dairies, the floor of the cheese-room is well rub- 
bed with mint, elder leaves, potato stems, and 
other herbaceous matter, for the double purpose 
of giving the cheeses a greenish coat, and of pro- 
tecting them from mites; and in other dairies, 
the newly-made cheeses are washed once a-fort- 
night with hot whey, for the purpose of giving 
them a clean and firm exterior. 
Cheddar cheese takes its name from the village 
of Cheddar, near the Mendip-Hills in Somerset- 
shire; but it is manufactured throughout the 
whole of the rich midland district of that county, 
both in its somewhat hilly parts, and in the 
marshes around Glastonbury. It was, for a con- 
siderable time, sold in the London market under 
| the stolen name of double Gloucester, and may be 
CHEESE. 
supposed to have been originally manufactured 
in imitation of that cheese; but it eventually 
acquired so great a reputation as to be readily 
sold, at an equal price, in its own name. The 
cows are pastured and milked in the vicinity of 
the dairy; the milk is expeditiously set with the 
rennet, and allowed to stand two hours undis- 
turbed; a portion of the first separated whey is 
heated and poured upon the curd, and afterwards 
all the whey is heated and poured back, and the 
whole allowed to stand for half an hour; and 
then the curd is put into the vat, subjected to 
pressure, and otherwise treated up to maturity 
in the usual manner. Cheddar cheese is dis- 
tinguished by a soft, rich, butyraceous appear- 
ance and flavour, and is supposed to possess a 
thorough constitutional intermixture of its par- 
ticles, and a powerful chemical habit of throwing 
off such portions of fatty matter as may have a 
tendency to putrescence. 
North Wiltshire cheese often contests celebrity 
with at once Dunlop, Gloucester, and Cheddar. 
It was at first, like the Cheddar, an humble imi- 
tation of Gloucester; but, also like the Cheddar, 
it now boasts an independent reputation. “One 
circumstance,” says Mr. Davis, “goes a great way 
to explain the goodness of the North Wiltshire 
cheese, namely, the convenient situation of most 
of the farm-houses in the centre of the farm, so 
that all the cows can be driven home to milk, 
and all the milk can be put together of an equal 
temperature, and, by beginning the work early, 
the dairyman can make cheese twice in the day.” 
The salt of the North Wiltshire cheese, as of the 
Dunlop, is intermixed with the curd; the curd is 
crumbled into very minute pieces, or as nearly as 
possible pulverized ; and the cheeses undergo less 
pressure, and are usually made of far smaller 
sizes, than those of other celebrious dairy districts. 
A frequent method of compression is, to put the 
curd for each cheese into a filtering-bag, hung 
with the point downwards, during twenty-four 
hours, so as to give it the form of a pine-apple, 
and then to put it into a net, and hang it with 
the point upwards till it is sufficiently dry. In 
some dairies, a preparation of green-colouring 
matter is made with a cold decoction in milk of 
sage, marigold, and parsley; and a portion of 
this is mixed with the milk or curd of each 
cheese-making, in order to give the cheeses a 
greenish hue. 
Stilton cheese is pre-eminently celebrated for 
richness, high flavour, and exquisite piquancy. 
It was first manufactured by a relative of the 
proprietor of the Old Bell Inn at Stilton, in Lei- 
cestershire, and took from that place its name; 
but it is now extensively made throughout the 
counties of Leicester, Huntingdon, and Cam- 
bridge, and in some adjoining districts. It was 
originally of such choice quality as to be cur- 
rently sold for half-a-crown a pound, but it is 
now of diversified quality, in general much de- 
teriorated, and largely of such a kind as to be 
