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PRINCIPLES OF CHEESE-MAKING.

Ar the fourth annual meeting of the American Dairymen's Association, held at Utica, N. Y., much valuable information was brought out in reference to various points connected with cheese-making. From the Report of the Association we make some extracts, the perusal of which cannot fail to be beneficial to the dairymen of Michigan. The following is an address of L. B. Arnold, of Tompkins county, N. Y., on the subject of cooling milk before cheese is made therefrom, and the cause of the early decay of American cheese:"

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The history of the production of cheese in the United States is a history of progress and development. From small beginnings it has steadily increased till it has assumed a magnitude of immense proportions. The low price of land has so kept down the cost of cheese as to make it a cheap luxury, and from its cheapness there has arisen a large demand for home consumption. Formerly it was all consumed within our own borders. So lately as 1850, out of an annual production of 110 millions of pounds, 100 millions were consumed by our own people. But lately a demand has sprung up abroad for our goods, which, with the introduction of the factory system, has expanded its production beyond all precedent. We are now manufacturing the enormous quantity of over 200 millions of pounds annually. It is evident that such a vast amount could not find a market at home at remunerating prices. Over onefourth of this amount is now consumed by other nations; and it is on this export demand that we are now dependent for living rates.

It behooves us to study the requirements of that demand, and to adapt our cheese to its necessities. But it is notorious that we are not fully satisfying the requisitions of our foreign market. The best English cheese outsells the best American cheese by about one pound sterling per hundred weight.

While some of our goods sent abroad would be accounted good in any market, much that appears excellent when it leaves the factory loses its excellence before it reaches its destination. We are not realizing for our products what we ought; and we are without mercy, in a crowded market, from the perishable nature of our goods.

The early decay of American cheese, which has become an acknowledged fact, is, I have no doubt, the result of a variety of causes. Among these causes may be named: bad and excessive rennet, light salting, light scalding, new or uncooled milk, diseased milk, putting the curd in press while too warm, curing too rapidly, &c. Each of these, doubtless, has its bearing upon the general result, but to no one of them do I believe the early decay of American cheese wholly belongs. Recently the opinion has been gaining ground that the use of new milk, or milk that has not been cooled, is the main cause of a too early maturity. All milk must be warm when curded; but new or uncooled milk is supposed to differ from that which has been cooled, in two important particulars, viz: in containing a peculiar heat called animal heat, and a peculiar odor called animal odor; the two in some way so blended together, that the removal or retention of one carries with it the removal or retention of the other.

In answering the invitation to assist in opening the discussion on the topic before the convention, I propose to confine myself to the consideration of these particulars, and leave to those more familiar with them, the other causes of decay.

And first, Animal Heat. What is it? Is it any different from any other heat? In the opinion of many intelligent dairymen, and of some agricultural writers and editors even, there is something peculiar in the warmth of newly drawn milk, that is

very efficient and controlling in the production of bad results; and that, as before stated, it is intimately and necessarily associated with the odor that accompanies such milk; and this opinion is strengthened and confirmed by observing that, when the natural warmth is removed, the aforesaid odor disappears with it. The inference is then very natural that animal heat is the prime instigator of all the injuries that are supposed to follow the use of new milk; and that its removal implies also the removal of the odor, and is all that is necessary to for the hands of the cheese-maker.

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In opposition to all this, we were last year assured by Professor Brewer that animal heat does not differ from any other heat; that all heat is essentially the same; and all chemists whose authority is worth consulting, tell us the same thing. In the face of these conflicting opinions, I have preferred not to follow either implicitly, but to determine for myself, first, whether the heat and odor are inseparably connected; and secondly, if they exist independently of each other, what is the capacity of each for evil. By abstracting the heat rapidly by an application of ice and cold water, I easily succeeded in removing the heat and leaving the odor in the milk. It is true that, in experiments for this purpose, the odor was not so apparent to the olfactory nerves as to the organs of taste. The animal odor became an animal flavor. But, upon warming the milk again, the odor revived. Then, by the use of a filter of pulverized charcoal, I succeeded perfectly in removing every trace of animal odor from milk when first drawn, and leaving the animal heat in the milk. These experiments fully satisfied me that there is no necessary connection between the two, and furnished satisfactory evidence that the former does not differ from heat derived from other sources. Instead of using the phrase "animal heat," we may as well drop the term "animal," and inquire what effect heat has upon newly drawn milk. But the effects of heat upon milk are so well known, that I need not waste many words, nor the precious time of this conven

tion, in answering this query. Everybody knows that heat hastens the development of acidity and the decomposition of milk, and the higher the temperature the greater the effect. This is true until we approach 170 degrees. But above that temperature those effects are, for awhile, retarded. I will not stop to explain why the results are different above and below the degree named. It might interest the curious, but it is not necessary to the discussion of the subject under consideration, so I will let it pass, as we have been admonished to be brief.

Now, what of the odor that accompanies new milk? What is it? Whence is it derived? Is it something that necessarily constitutes a part of the milk? Or is it something that like milk is formed out of the elements of the blood? No: it is not either. It is, I apprehend, derived from the waste material of the cow's body.

Animal bodies are constantly undergoing change. A steady supply and waste are necessary to existence. Food is digested and carried to every part of the system, and so vitalized as to become a part of the living structure, and when it has served the purposes of life, it is cast out as waste and dead matter. Physiologists have demonstrated that a large portion of this waste is cast out in the form of gases. No part of the structure is impervious to the passage of these gases, so necessary everywhere to be got rid of. All parts of the body are made open to their escape. All the liquid secretions of the body absorb them; they are cast out in the breath; and very abundantly through the pores of the skin. It is this gaseous waste, absorbed by the milk in the udder, and which escapes when drawn, that we recognize as the animal odor in milk. This is the material which we are carrying, shut up with the milk in cans, to our factories, to be worked into cheese with which to supply our customers at home and abroad. This is the agent to which, I believe, may be ascribed nearly, if not all, the evil consequences that arise from using new milk.

Let us now study the nature of this odor and trace its results. Being derived from the changing elements of the cow's body,

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