Hints on Dairying

by T. D. Curtis

CHEESE MAKING.

So much has been written and said, and so little understood, about cheese making, that it seems almost a hopeless task, as well as a thankless one, to attempt to say anything more on the subject. Sour ignoramuses and floating charlatans have spoiled more curds than have been spoiled by any defect in the milk. Sour, whey-soaked cheese has been the rage, and it is generally supposed that acid alone makes a firm cheese, when the experience of every cheese maker is that it is very difficult, by the ordinary processes, to make a firm curd out of sour milk—which, of course, no one ought to be asked to make into cheese—unless it be pot-cheese. Acid may make a curd solid, but not until it has cut out a large share of the goodness of the curd, and the cheese resulting will be about as digestible as so much putty.

DUTY OF PATRONS.

It is the duty of every patron of a cheese factory to send good milk to it, and to send the milk in good condition. It is not only his duty, but his interest to do this. A bad mess of milk may spoil a whole vat-full. This not only entails loss on his neighbor, where the factory is run on the pro rata plan, but the patron must stand his share of the loss. Aside from the loss entailed on others and himself, he ought to be ashamed to deliver milk in a bad condition. There is no valid excuse for it. It ought to be his pride to deliver milk in as good condition as anybody does. If he cannot, he should leave the business, and go into something in which he has the ability to excel. Care and cleanliness, if the cows are healthy and have proper food, will insure good milk always.

UNREASONABLE EXPECTATION.

It is unreasonable to expect a cheese maker to turn a prime article of cheese out of poor milk. If one carries shoddy cloth to the tailor, he expects a shoddy suit in return, not a broadcloth one. So, if he carries bad milk to the factory, he must expect bad cheese. If he takes sour apples to the cider mill, he does not expect sweet-flavored cider, but sour. So, if he carries sour milk to the cheese factory, he must expect sour cheese. These defects, when they exist in a small degree, may be overcome, or nearly so, and a passable cheese made. But, is the cheese made from imperfect milk really a fit article of food? Who would work rotten eggs into custard, or sour meal into bread? Yet this is just as consistent as working sour or tainted milk into cheese, and the product is just as wholesome. That which makes stinking eggs makes stinking milk—decayed albumen—which is just as wholesome in the one as in the other.

GUARANTEES.

The cheese maker who guarantees his cheese is very foolish if he does not insist on a guarantee of good milk, nor should he be compelled to rely on his judgment formed in the haste of receiving the milk. A tricky man may juggle a bad mess of milk on to the best expert. How can the cheese maker tell whether the milk is from a gargetty udder, or the first milk after calving—both of which may develop in a very offensive way when the milk is heated up? So the milk may be so nearly tainted or so nearly sour that it will not stand the process of heating up and cooking. The law ought to be very severe on the man who delivers bad milk at a factory, or sells it to anyone. The factoryman who pays the price of good milk for sour or tainted milk is certainly very short-sighted, and cannot long maintain the respect of the man who sells it to him, nor sustain himself pecuniarily. The man who pays cash for milk has the right, above all others, to demand that the milk shall be sweet and wholesome. This is one point that should be insisted upon—the delivery of good milk in good condition.