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PROPERTIES OF CHEESE.

cheese, the best sort made in Holland, owes its peculiar pungency to the muriatic acid used instead of rennet for curdling the milk.. Swiss cheese is usually made from skim-milk, and flavoured with herbs. There are, of course, richer cheeses, such as the Neufchâtel and Bondon, of the nature of cream cheese. In Westphalia cheese the curd is allowed to become slightly soured before it is compressed. The Italian cheese which is prepared for exportation is kept in brine, and is consequently excessively salt. It is only intended as a condiment for macaroni.

The poorer the cheese is, the longer it will keep, but every variety, if well cleared from whey and sufficiently salted, may be preserved for years.

Parmesan cheese owes its rich flavour to the fine sweet herbage of the meadows along the Po, where the cows are pastured. Dutch and Swiss cheeses contain, according to chemical analysis, from twenty to forty per cent. of nitrogenised matter, considered the most nutritive constituent of food. The best cheese is from twenty-five to a hundred per cent. more nutritious than bread or meat, which contains only about two per cent. of nitrogen.

The quantities of carbon and nitrogen in one pound of moderately good cheese are (according to Dr. Smith "On Foods") 2660. grains of the former and 315 grains of the latter, showing how rich this substance is in nitrogen.

To delicate stomachs cheese is objectionable on account of its slow and difficult digestion; but to individuals of great physical strength, it is a healthful and agreeable article of consumption. In combustible or heat-giving qualities, cheese is only exceeded by oil, butter, and like unctuous substances.

Cheese as an animal food may with advantage be substituted for butcher's meat at the current prices. There are good and substantial reasons for regarding cheese as a wholesome and valuable food, and it is worthy of even a more liberal consumption than it now receives. English people probably consume more cheese than any other nation on the globe, namely, in the pro

IMPORTS OF FOREIGN CHEESE.

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portion of about ten pounds yearly to each inhabitant. In the United States the consumption is about half that quantity. Besides being, when properly used, a wholesome and nutritious diet, and richer in nutritious value than butcher's meat or any other animal food, its peculiar ability to enhance the value and improve the healthfulness of the food with which it is consumed; the aid it renders in digestion, its readiness for use at all times without loss or trouble in cooking; its convenient form for handling and transporting; the ease and certainty with which it may be preserved for many months without loss or injury that occurs to other food from an excess of salt :--all these commend it to the favour of the public. In the army and navy, especially, it would be not only a luxury to soldiers and sailors, but a cheap, healthful, and substantial substitute for the continued use of salt meat.

The imports of foreign made cheese have been largely on the increase year by year, and have now reached about 81,300 tons while the home production is probably 100,000 tons.

The following figures give the imports at decennial periods, showing that our imports nearly double every ten years:

The countries from which we receive our supplies, are shown in the return for 1874:

130 PRODUCTION & CONSUMPTION OF CHEESE.

The declared value of this quantity was close upon £4,500,000. Very little of this cheese was re-exported, nearly all being used in this country.

In Paris the consumption of cheese of all kinds, fresh and dry, in 1860 exceeded 8,000,000 pounds, which was an average of about seven or eight pounds per head of the population.

The principal cheese-producing countries are the United States and Canada, Holland, Switzerland, and Bavaria.

In the United States the production of cheese in 1850 was but 1,000,000 cwts., now it is more than double that amount; indeed the combined production of Canada and the United States in 1875 exceeded 3,000,000 cwts. It takes there a little over a gallon of milk to make a pound of cheese.

The exports of cheese from the United States in 1873 were nearly 1,000,000 cwts., and from Canada 174,000 cwts.; Holland exports from 500,000 to 600,000 cwts. annually; Switzerland shipped 392,153 cwts. in 1873.

The exports of cheese from France in 1874 were 182,353 cwt., valued at over £550,000, but all this was not French cheese. Bavaria holds a position of importance for its production of cheese and butter. The cheese made is of a similar character to that of Switzerland, and is generally sold as such in Austria, France, and other countries.

The production of cheese and butter from each cow on the dairy farms of the Allgars, the pastoral district, is computed at about 184 pounds, and the total production of cheese at 11,029 tons, and of butter 2,386

tons.

RENNET. In cheese-making, the milk may be coagulated or curdled by the application of any sort of acid, but the substance which is most commonly used is the maws or stomachs of young calves, prepared for the purpose. These are generally denominated "rennets," but they are also often provincially called "vells," and in Scotland, "yearnings." In France the rennet is known as présure, or caillette de veau. Some people save the entire paunch,

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whereas it is only the fourth or true digesting stomach of the young calf that properly makes a rennet. The calf must be perfectly healthy, must have suckled the cow for at least four or five days, and to within a short time of killing. If it has been without food for any length of time, the stomach becomes inflamed, and especially so if the calf has been driven or carried a distance, and then it is of no value for rennet. The stomach should be taken out and well cleaned at once after the calf is killed, and, as soon as cold, is to be salted and left to dry on a dish for a day or two, then stretched on a hoop or crooked stick, and hung up to dry in a place where the temperature is moderately warm. The Bavarian method is to blow up the rennet like a bladder, and tie one end to keep out air, first putting on it a little salt at the place where tied. The skins being thus made very thin, will dry rapidly and keep well. Sometimes they are suspended in paper bags.

This prepared stomach, or rennet, when steeped in water, produces a decoction which possesses the power of thickening milk-decomposing it, and separating the casein from the liquid or whey. The most convenient way to prepare the rennet for use is to place the stomach in a stoneware jar with two handfuls of salt; pour about three quarts of cold water over it, and allow the whole to stand for five days; then strain and put it into bottles, or the rennet may be soaked over night in warm water, and next morning the infusion is poured into the milk. In from fifteen to sixty minutes the milk becomes coagulated, the casein separating in a thick mass. The rennet possesses the chemical property of producing lactic acid, by acting upon the sugar in the milk. The acid unites with the soda in the milk, which holds the casein in solution, when the casein, which is insoluble, separates, forming the curd. If we take an ounce of this membrane and wash and dry it thoroughly, and then put it into eighteen hundred ounces of milk, heated to 120° Fah., we shall find that in a short time coagulation of the milk is complete. If we remove the membrane from the curd, again wash, dry, and weigh it, it will be