The National tribune. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1877-1917, 1892-09-15
OUR RURAL TOPICS.
Some Practical Suggestions for Our
Agricultural Readers
MILK FOR CHEESE. MIXING.

The quality of milk for cheese making is
set forth in lecture recently delivered by DR..
F. T. Bond, who says: Milk might be consider
ed briefly as fluid holding in solution. or IN
a state OF imperfect solution, something called
casein. The substance in which the cascin
was held in that state of diffusion contained
certain soluble constituents. namely sugar
and certain salts. They need not consider the
sugar and the only salt they need consider
was the phosphstes. II the phosphatos were
removed from the milk they could get no curd
bt for cheese making at all, and on the relative
value of the phosphates, and the extent TO
which they were combined with the curd, de-
pended its stability for cheese making purposes
There were strong curds aud weak curds, or
strong forms of curd and weak forms. and by
strong forms nc meant curd which possessed
i'll high degree the two properties, tenacity
and elasticity-the ability to hold together,
and especially to contract. They were all of
them in the habit of using press as an ad-
Junct to cheese making, and he yentured TO
say the worse tho cheese-maker the less use he
made of it, And the reason was that a we'll
handled eurd possessed the property Of con-
largely eliminate it by the process of sDonta-
neoua contraction, so long the eurd was
maintained at a proper temperature, and that
therefore lessened, if not abolished, the ueces-
sity for the press. There were some cheeses of
certain size which were made without
press.
strong curd, by possessing the properties
OF tenacity and elasticity, could be handled
during the whole process Of cheese making in
way to produce an eminontly- satisfactory
result. On the other hand, weak curd, which
was just devoid of these properties more or
less, produced cheese which has very little
power of spontaneous contraction, and how
ever much they might use the press they could
not eliminate the whey except at an extrava-
CANT loss, and they made a cheese which was
liable under unfavorable condition to all those
fermentation changes which constituted the
difficulty of cheese making, or cheese curing
he should say. The absence of phosphate of
lime from the curd make weak and unman-
ageable curd, and hence, unless the milk con-
tanned due proportion of phosphates it was
in that proportion untitled or badly fitted for
cheese-making. The process of continually
cropping pastures must necessarily tend TO the
removal of phosphates, which were among
the scarcest Of the constituents of the soil,
and of which the soil would therefore be
sooner or later robbed, unless they were sys-
temstically replaced. That replacement of the
phosphates had been to a very large extent
neglected, and that even where it had been
supposed, and had to some extent been car
ried out by the introduction to limited ex-
tent of farmyard manures, the effect was far
less than had been generally assumed, from
the fact that the composition of farmyard
manure was very uncertain thing. In the
great majority of cases phosphates were al
lowed to escape from it, and even under the
most favorable conditions the replacement was
not nearly so effective as it should be.
FOR THE SAKE OF THE BEES.
De- A CT l. ~