both.

The milk-can should, by all means, be kept out of the sun's rays, and in a clean airy place. As to the importance of airing milk, there is a difference of opinion. Some assert that the airing is beneficial only so far as it assists in cooling, and that if we can succeed in cooling the milk down to 60°, or thereabouts, immediately after milking, we shall attain all the good results apparent from exposure to the air. All the "animal odors," they say, disappear. Be that as it may, it is scarcely possible to cool milk without more or less exposure to the atmosphere, and we have never heard it claimed that any bad consequences follow this exposure. It is possible, however, that it may more rapidly absorb oxygen, and thus sooner sour. The probability is, that any process which will secure the proper cooling will also afford the necessary exposure for the escape of all animal or other odors likely to pass off in the form of gas. Therefore, practically, it is of very little importance whether we consider the question of airing milk, in any of the stages of its management. So we will first look after the processes which secure known advantages.

Several inventions for the purpose of cooling milk have made their appearance within the past year or two. Some for the use of factories, which seem to work quite satisfactorily, and others for the use of farmers, none of which, we believe, have yet been received with much favor. They are mostly too complicated, if not too expensive, and too difficult to keep clean, to ever become generally adopted. Yet, enough has already been developed to convince us that the desideratum, of a satisfactory apparatus for cooling milk as fast as, or soon after, it is taken from the cow, can be realized. The great trouble is, to make farmers use it faithfully, if at all.

The cooling of milk as fast as milked, or very soon afterward, is the great question now presented to farmers and cheese-makers. It is of quite as much and more consequence, than keeping it cool at the factory—for milk is often so far advanced in decomposition, if not actually sour or tainted, when received, that it is impossible to work it up satisfactorily. Some Yankee must give us a simple and cheap apparatus that will effect the desired result. Such an invention will greatly improve the quality and increase the consumption and price of American cheese. But, in the absence of anything better, the can set in a tub of water and the milk frequently stirred, would be a great improvement on starting for the factory with hot milk. If the water can be made to constantly run into the tub, fresh and cool, as the warm water runs out, so much the better. Another improvement would be some kind of wagon-cover, permitting the air to pass under it, to keep off the sun in clear weather and keep out the rain in wet weather. The hot rays of the sun, pouring on a can of milk for the distance of two or three miles, perhaps—especially if the milk is not cooled before starting—cannot fail to do it serious injury. Milk thus exposed often has a very offensive smell when it reaches the factory-door. This shows that it is already tainted and in a condition to injure the good milk in the vat into which it is run, and cause a porous or "huffy" curd.

The question as to the effect of suddenly cooling milk has been somewhat discussed; also as to how low a temperature is beneficial. Experiments are necessary to definitely and satisfactorily settle these questions. Our impression is that, if ice is not used, there is no danger of cooling milk too suddenly or of getting it too cool. But where ice is used, especially if permitted to come in contact with the milk, or even to be separated from it only by a thickness of tin, there is danger of chilling the particles of milk in immediate contact with the cold surface, and causing them to prematurely decay. This would, of course, injure the keeping qualities of the rest of the batch. So far as the suddenness of the operation is concerned, we doubt if it would have any material effect, one way or the other. But where any portion of the milk is chilled, whether the whole batch of milk be slowly or suddenly reduced in temperature, we should expect it to injure the flavor and keeping qualities of the cheese. Some experiments, like the one made and related by Mr. Farrington, of Canada, at the last Convention of the American Dairymen's Association, would seem to favor the conclusion, that suddenly reducing the milk to a low temperature is unfavorable to the production of the best quality of cheese. More experiments, as we have previously suggested, are necessary to finally settle these questions. But of the importance of cooling milk down to as low a temperature as 60° to 65°, there can be no doubt; and there need be no fear of milk being cooled rapidly enough to injure it where only water is used in the process of cooling.

CHAPTER VI. DELIVERING MILK.

Very little attention is usually paid to carrying milk to the factory. Too many pour the hot milk into a can standing on a wagon or platform, in the broiling sun, put on the cover, which fits almost air-tight, as soon as through, and then haul it in this condition, without any shelter or protection from the sun's rays, to the factory. It is sometimes drawn two or three miles in this way. Or, as is often the case, it is left standing on the platform, covered air-tight, until the milk-wagon comes along. Whether taken on the wagon at the beginning of the route, or left standing on the platform at the last end of the route, it broils in the sun an hour or two, with the animal heat all in it. If drawn a long distance, it is pretty well churned, in addition, and thus a separation of the butter takes place which no ingenuity of the cheese-maker can remedy; but when the result is seen in the cream rising on the whey-vat, anathemas are heaped on his head. Where the milk stands quiet on the platform, the cream rises and forms an air-tight covering over the top of the milk, which soon taints next to the cream. And whether standing still or riding in a tight can, exposed to the sun's rays, without the animal heat having been expelled, it is scarcely possible to avoid taint.

In this way, the manufacturer is furnished with perhaps fifty or seventy-five messes of milk, all more or less tainted, or at least progressed in decomposition, whether any offensive odor is perceptible or not. He has these to cool off and keep over night—often with poor facilities for cooling—for proprietors of factories are too often ignorant of the importance of providing ample means for cooling, or are too eager for large profits on small investments, to furnish them. So the operator dips and stirs away at the decomposing mass until ten or eleven o'clock, if not later, and finally yields to "tired nature's sweet restorer, balmy sleep," to rest his weary muscles and care-worn brain—exhausted, perhaps, by months of incessant toil seven days every week. By five the next morning he must be on hand, to receive the scattering messes of milk. At seven or eight o'clock comes the rush. Then the messes begin to drop off, and by half-past nine or ten o'clock the last steaming batch, with an unmistakable rotten-egg smell, makes its appearance.

Now, what has the cheese-maker got on his hands, some sweltering morning, during the season when it is "too hot to make butter," and people kindly draw their dairy liquids to the cheese-factory? Why, on rising in the morning and rubbing open his eyes, he breaks the cream on his milk. The under surface has a sickish, sour smell, which tells him very plainly that it cannot be worked up too soon. But what is he to do? The answer is plain enough: Run into this fermenting mass an equal quantity of