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قراءة كتاب Hints on cheese-making for the dairyman, the factoryman, and the manufacturer

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‏اللغة: English
Hints on cheese-making
for the dairyman, the factoryman, and the manufacturer

Hints on cheese-making for the dairyman, the factoryman, and the manufacturer

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دار النشر: Project Gutenberg
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water for each vat. The faucets in the penstocks should be all of the same hight—if any difference is made, the one farthest from the head might be a quarter or half an inch the lowest. Outside should be a penstock, to carry off the superfluous water. The outlet to this should be a few inches higher than the faucets in the penstocks for supplying the vats with water. This is necessary to secure a flow of water in the factory. In freezing weather, and during the winter, the penstocks in the factory can be removed, until needed for use, and the holes in the pipe beneath plugged up. An extra faucet in one of the penstocks at the ends of the vats, inserted high enough from the floor to set a pail under, will supply all the necessary water for cleaning and other purposes.


CHAPTER II. PRODUCTION OF MILK.

The requisites of good milk have been so frequently and fully discussed, that we need not more than briefly advert to them now. The importance of good milk, for either cheese or butter, will be conceded, and therefore the question need not be argued.

The first requisites of good milk are good cows. But these will disappoint their owners if they have not good keep. Plenty of good clean hay and pure water, with warm quarters, are indispensable. The old-fashioned method of allowing cows, or other cattle, to weather all kinds of storms, with a snow-bank for a bed at night, we believe is pretty effectually done away with. It has been found that it does not pay. It is not yet quite so universally admitted that generous feeding is equally advantageous, nor that a warm stable is as much an advance on an open, cold one, where the cows stand and shiver throughout the twenty-four hours, as a common shelter is an improvement on no shelter. Yet, a warm stable, which may be had for a small expense, is decided economy, in the saving of food, as well as a comfort to the cows; and generous feeding will be found a profitable investment, both by the increased flow of milk and by its increased richness. A poorly-kept cow will give less milk than a well-kept one, and its poorer quality will be more manifest than the diminution in quantity. When turned out to grass, if the feed should prove good, it will take the cow weeks to build up her system and get in the condition she should have been in at the start; and though the quantity and quality of her milk will improve, she will reach the time when the mess naturally begins to shrink before she will have thoroughly recuperated. After this, the richness of the milk will probably be satisfactory. But in case the season should open dry and cold, so that the grass starts slowly, and is then followed by the hot dry weather of July and August, as is not unfrequently the case, a cow that starts "spring poor" will scarcely get in good condition before the grass is nipped by the fall frosts and it becomes necessary to begin to fodder.

There is a marked difference in the quality of the messes of milk delivered at a cheese-factory. The use of the lactometer and cream-gauges will show this. It will be an interesting experiment, for cheese-makers who never tried it, to test in this way the quality of the milk delivered by the different patrons, and then ascertain the style in which each keeps his cows, the character of the pastures of each, the kind of water which the pastures afford—whether brook, river, swamp or spring—and to note any other facts and conditions which may be apparent or may suggest themselves. It will be found, we think, that bad wintering and poor pastures have as much or more to do than anything else with the production of poor milk. No breed of cows nor selection of a dairy can wholly counteract these evils. The yield of milk will undoubtedly be greater and better with some cows than with others; and so with naturally good cows, good wintering and pasturing will show quite as marked improvements.

We have in our mind an instance where, at the opening of a cheese-factory, only a few of the farmers, having the largest dairies, delivered milk. They were all men who fed their cows well during the winter, and gave them meal before and after coming in. The result was an astonishingly large yield of cheese from milk at that season of the year. But as the messes increased, and milk from dairies poorly-kept came in, the yield of cheese in proportion to the number of pounds of milk steadily diminished. The lactometer and cream-gauges showed that the poorest milk came from the poorest-kept cows.

The forepart of the season proved a cold and wet one, which made the grass more juicy and less nutritious. This, with the accidental or intentional watering which the milk got from the rain falling in the cans, either at home or on the road, was also believed to decrease the yield of cheese. It appeared that milk coming long distances through the rain, other things being equal, showed more water than that brought short distances. Manifestly, some sort of shelter to the cans should be devised, to be used both at home and on the road, during rainy weather—and the same for keeping off the rays of the sun, in fair weather, is equally desirable.

All through the season, in the instance referred to, there was a marked difference in the quality of the milk of the well-kept and of the poorly-kept dairies. Swampy pastures also seemed to impoverish the milk. Those pastures that were dry, with pure water accessible, appeared to produce the richest milk. While the milk of the best dairies, on being tested, would indicate a yield of a pound of cheese to eight or nine pounds of milk, the milk of others would not yield a pound of cheese to less than eleven or twelve pounds of milk. The average number of pounds of milk for a pound of cheese, during the season, was about 9.9.

In the foregoing, will be seen a manifest objection to the factory system, as at present conducted. The quality of the milk delivered is nowhere taken into consideration. The man who has a well-selected dairy, keeps it well, and delivers milk that will turn out, for the season, a hundred pounds of cheese for every nine hundred pounds of milk, gets no more returns for a given number of pounds of milk than the man who delivers milk so poor that twelve hundred pounds of it will not make more than a hundred pounds of cheese, or the same as the former's nine hundred pounds. There is a difference of about twenty-five per cent, in the quality of the milk turned out by the good and the poor dairies, one-half of which the owner of the former loses, and the other half of which the owner of the latter gains, by getting his milk made up at the factory. Some means should be devised for remedying this piece of injustice, if the better class of dairies is to be retained by the factories.


CHAPTER III. COMPOSITION OF MILK.

The composition of milk, though frequently discussed, is not generally well understood. It is quite variable, not only in the milk from different cows, but in that from the same cow at different times, and in different conditions, but especially at different seasons of the year. It is more buttery in winter, and more cheesy in summer. A cow milked three times a day would give more in quantity but poorer in quality, than if milked twice; while one milked twice a day will yield more milk than if milked once a day, but one milking a day would be the richer. The first milk drawn from the udder is more watery than what follows; the last is the richest. The accumulation of milk in the cow's bag is influenced by the law of gravitation. The water being the heaviest ingredient, settles to the bottom, and is the first milked; the cream, which is

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