New Milk’s Cheese.
—This is made in winter, when the cows are in the stall. It is not so good as grass cheese, which is made in summer, when the cows are at pasture, and is less relished, and brings a lower price. When the cows are brought to the barn late in the fall, it can be made of very good quality for a few days; but the longer the cow remains in the stall the more the milk loses its good quality for cheese, on which account but few of the larger dairies make cheese at all in winter.
To make it appear to buyers more like grass-made cheese, and to be able to sell it, it is colored with the same material, and it is then often very difficult to distinguish it, since great pains is taken to give the two kinds the same form, hardness of rind, etc. The dairymen have less to do with this deception than the dealers. Hay cheese is rather better in quality for coloring, since it gains in appearance and taste; but it never can equal grass-made cheese in fine qualities.
Cheese-making in North Holland.
—In the province of North Holland sweet milk cheese is made almost exclusively. From ancient times this particular branch of farming has been carried to great extent; but it has especially grown in importance since the province gained a firm soil by artificial draining. At the present time North Holland is the head-quarters of the cheese-trade; and it is easily explained in the fact that no other province has more or better cattle. The manufacture of cheese is almost the only object of keeping cattle, and the North Dutch dairy farmer applies himself with the greatest possible zeal to the most careful modes of cheese-making, in order to keep up the ancient reputation of his cheeses, both in the domestic and foreign markets, and to secure to himself all of the advantages springing from it.
The quantity of cheese which is weekly sold in the markets of Alkmaar, Hoorn, Edam, Purmerend, Medenblik, Enkhuizen, etc., is enormous. We cite Alkmaar alone as an example, where on the city scales there were weighed no less than 23,859,258 Netherlandish pounds (536,834,830 pounds, American), from 1758 to 1830. Since that time the manufacture has increased, so that from three to four million Netherland pounds are annually brought to the Alkmaar market. But, besides this, a large quantity of cheese does not come into the market, but is sold at the dairy without passing through the hands of the traders, and never comes to the city scales.
In 1843 there were sold in the North Dutch cheese-markets 22,385,812 pounds, to say nothing of the large quantity sold directly from the dairy. It is easy to see, therefore, how important and extensive an interest the manufacture of cheese has become for this province. Of the twenty-two million pounds annually exported, the value may be estimated as at least three million Dutch guilders. The price and value of the cheese vary, of course, with the markets.
The North Dutch cheese differs somewhat in quality and money value, according to the section where it is made; but in general that made in the region about Hoorn is considered the best, as is very natural, since in that vicinity are to be found the finest meadows and pastures in the province. The villages of Oosterblokker, Westerwoude, Hoogecarspel, and Twisk, are distinguished above all others; and so are the pastures of Beemster, Purmer, and Schermer, almost equally so.
The Dutch cheese-maker reckons twelve Netherland cans of milk to a pound—two and a quarter pounds American—of cheese, according to which a cow in three hundred days would give from eighteen hundred to two thousand cans of milk, or usually from one hundred and fifty to one hundred and seventy-five Netherland pounds of cheese, in a year.