THE YEOMAN.

Wairarapa Standard, Volume II, Issue 61, 29 February 1868, Page 3

THE YEOMAN.

CHEESE MAKING. From the “ Field.” “ Notwithstanding the temporary advance in the value of bread stuffs consequent upon a second deficient crop, not at borne only, but generally throughout the world, it is to live stock that the English farmer must look for his chief source of wealth, and thedairy forms no inconsiderable return in the great pasture districts which occupy so much of our western coast. The cheese trade, however, can hardly prove so remunerative as of old. Free trade has opened up enormous importations, Holland, the United States, and Canada being our chiefcontributors. Now we can remember, but a few years since, when the mention of an American cheese was associated with a rank, strong, badly made product, that rapidly decayed without ripening, and was only suitable for coarse consumption, English dairy farmers could afford to treat such imports as undeserving of notice. The case is very different now, when, with a broad variation, it is true we receive cheeses as well made, as finely flavored, and often richer than anything we can produce. Land being cheap in the States, and cheese a commodity in small bulk according to value, and which improves rather than otherwise by a long journey, it follows that our neighbors can undersell us in our markets, and all second rate English make will prove a drug. Good dairy land can be rented in Missouri for a dollar an acre —land that would yield 41 cwt. of cheese per cow—and it follows that cheese can be sold at rates that would be ruinous to the English producer. It is quite clear cheese making will be restricted to such land as yields a first quality, and no pains should be spared to secure a good article This can never be accomplished until we abandon old fashioned plans, and make our cheese as the Americans do, scientifically. Land incapable of producingfine cheese will pay better for rearing stock and butter. When there is a market for milk, and railways to a great extent annihilate distance, the immediate return will be superior to any other arrangement; but we must not forget that the removal of mineral matters, especially phosphate and alkalies, and of nitrogen, must speedily weaken and eventually exhaust the best Soils, and that in order to maintain fertility a heavy outlayin bones and farm manure is inevitable. It is lamentable to think what vast stores of wealth have been and are still wasted in sewage of towns, andhowculpably negligent we have been in not utilising these valuable constituents. The question, though difficult to deal with practically, is not insurmountable; and the few instances in which sewage has been properly returned to the soil have abundantly proved its value, and should stimulate to more extensive operations. Where practicable, the milk supply of a town should he from land adjacent which can be fed by the sewage of the town. The experiments at Barking, theCraigentenny Meadows, and the sewage farm at Croydon, are examples of what should he done in the neighborhood of all large towns; and we trust the time is approaching when this momentous question, will receive due attention. Here is, indeed, a field worthy the energy of agricultural chambers and farmers’ clubs. It is simply ruinous to expend vast sums in foreign manures whilst home supplies are thus wasted.

But to return to the cheese question. The fine qualities of Eng-lish still command the best prices, and so long as this continues our dairymen should exert themselves to improve their manufacture. If we investigate the variety of practice in Cheshire, for example, we are driven to conclude that therule of thumb is too often the only rule studied, that scientific principles are unknown, and that great improvement is possible. In many instances dairy farms are small, and the occupiers ignorant men, incapable of doing the work properly. In such cases it is probable that the factory system, so successful in the States, would prove and ought to be tried. This consists in the establishment of a cheese making company, in the centre of a district. The farmers sell their milk at a fixed rate, and buy back the whey. As a proof of the success of such in the States the first factory was erected in 1851; a; the present time—sixteen years after—there are distributed through the States upwards of a thousand.' The price of labor is another pressing reason for centralization, and the subject has been seriously considered in Cheh re, where the ordinary plans are radically defective and the labor, consequentupon antiquated arrangements excessive. One notable result would be greater uniformity. At present half-a-dozen plans are adopted ; and, as a consequence, the quantity is equally variable.

We direct the attention to some of the more common causes of failure. First and foremost, the want of perfect cleanliness. The hands that milk must be clean ; the vessels that receive the milk must be free from impurity,- the atmosphere of the dairy sweet and pure, free from the miasma arising from drains, decaying matter, neighboring pigsties, and the like; the aspect of the dairy such as secures a cool temperature. All these are active causes of fermentation, and it cannot be too forcibly insisted on that nothing affects the quality of cheese so much as the presence of ferments, which taint the milk. The use of wooden vessels either for milking or in the dairy is an error. The milk penetrates the wood and cannot be removed by scalding; consequently it ferments, and communicates its restless condition to the new milk. Tin pails and shallow block tin or glass pans are desirable: and if the latter are furnished with a jacket, so that the temperature of the milk may be reduced by placing cold water in the jacket, so much the better. Milk pails should be concave at the bottom, free from short angles in which the milk may lodge, and everything should be carefully and immediately cleansed with hot water after use. Whilst pure water is so indispensable in order to keep all sweet and wholesome, its use in the dairy should yet be limited. Many maids appear to glory in damp, and throw down large Suantities of water, which soaks into the oor, and saturates the air. A damp atmosphere predisposes to fermentation. “ Clean, cool, and dry,” are mottoes for the dairy. The changes that occur in cheese making are simple, and the slight variation in practice according to the method pursued, does not so materially affect the result as to the attention to minute points ; a little too much here, carelessness as to temperature there, and the cheese is seriously injured. Fresh milk is alkaline in its reaction. The casein or nitrogenous material of milk owes its solubility to a weak union with the alkali. If we introduce an acid, then the alirali, having a greater attraction for the acid than for the casein, leaves the latter, which immediately separates, and, if the process is properly managed should in coagulating enclose the greaterportion of the butter globules, leaving little but the watery particles and the mineral matters as whey. The quality of the cheese depends mainly upon the proportion of fatty matter it contains; and much skill is required to so treat the curd that, whilst the whey is thoroughly sepa ated, the fatty globules remain. The coagulation of the casein may be produced either by the direct introduction of an acid, or by the presence of a ferment that communicates its own restless condition to the particles of the sugar of milk, which speedily becomes transformed into lactic acid. The ferment invariably used is a solution called rennet, a decoction of animal membrane, and usually from the saturation of the calfs stomach or veil. These veils arc prepared beforehand, and the process of obtaining the renifet varies in different districts. The most common practice adopted in Gloucestershire and in the Cheddar system is to place the veils in saturated brine (six to two gallons of fluid) and allow them to soak for a varying period from two weeks to two months; whereas in Cheshire the rennet is made fresh every day.

Post Office Scene. —“Have you any letters for my master ?” ' “ Who's your master ?” “ The one I work lor.” “ What’s Lis name you idiot ?” “ Robert Drown, sir.’’ “ There's none here for him.” “It ain’t for him I wants it. It’s a letthcr for mcsilf; but I axes for him bekase his is Letthcr known than me own ’

An Irish Attorney threatened to prosecute a Dublin printer, for inserting the death of a live person. The menace concluded with the remark, “Ho printer should publish a death unless informed of the fact by the party deceased.”

A Leak, —During a dry spell, a very raw backwoodsman, just down from his native wilds to see the city sights, was standing on the corner, all agape, just as a watering machine broke loose and began to squirt its fluid contents to allay the dust, The backwoodsman thought that the cask had sprang a sudden and unpremeditated leak, without the knowledge and connivance of the driver, who was riding along and taking no notice of what the water was doing behind his hack, so he sung out, “Bay, stranger, your water's all wasting out o’ that har’l.” Stranger took no notice of this information, and the machine kept on delivering, which caused the rustic to remark, “ That ’ere man won’t get nary drop o’ that water is hum, ’gin it keeps a squirting out that way! Teller must be a fool.” “ Chicago Herald.” A merchant who died suddenly, left in his desk a letter written to one of his correspondents. His cleric, a son of Erin, seeing it necessary to send the letter, wrote at the bottom, “ Since writing the above, I have died.”

Where the Drunkards Go. —A Scotch pastor recognised one of his parishioners sitting by the roadside a little fuddled. —Will you just help me up with my bundle, gude mon?” said she, as he stopped,—“ Pie, lie, Janet,” cried the pastor, “to see the like o’ you in such a plight! do you know where all the drunkards go?—“Ay, sme," said Janet, “ they just go where a drap o’ good drink is to be got.” An Irish Lady’s Valentine. —Och Paddy, swate Paddy if I was your daddy, I’d kill ye wid kisses intirely; if I was your brother, and likewise your mother, I’d see that you went to bed early. To taste your sweet breath I’d starve me to death, aud lay off my hoops altogether, to jist have a taste of your arm on me waist, an’ larf at the manes of the weather. Dear Paddy be mine, me swate valentine yu’ll find me both gentle aud civil; our life we will spind to an illigant ind, and care may go dance wid the divil.