The Florida agriculturist. [volume] (DeLand, Fla.) 1878-1911, 1895-07-24
CHEESE BOX MAKING.
AN EXTENSIVE INDUSTRY OF WHICH
LITTLE is KNOWN.

Turned Out Yearly by Expensive Ma
chinery-HOw the Logs Are Cooked and
Then Cut Into UnbrOken Sheets.
An idea of the magnitude of the
cheese industry in this country is given
by the fact that the boxes in which the
cheese is shipped represent cost of
nearly 100000 annually. It is not
many years since cheese was shipped in
any kind of barrel or box which would
hold from one to half dozen good sized
forms, packed in straw to keep them
from being bruised Or broken in the
handling. It was only factory made
cheese that received such protection,
while dairy cheese was sent to market
destitute of any covering other than it's
own roughly bandaged rind, which in
most cases proved invulnerable. Com
petition among manufacturers has
changed all this, and at present the
manufacture of boxes gives employment
to a large number of hands and necessi-
tates the use of powerful and expensive
machinery.
It was customary in the early days of
the business to saw the hoops, as the
large body of the box is called, out of
the log in planks about one-fifth Of an
inch in thickness. The waste of materi-
al was a most serious objection to this
plan, fully so per cent of the timber
going in sawdust. The invention of the
rotary cutting machine has prevented
this waste and at the same time pro-
duced better hoop than the sawed arti-
cle The chief timber used in making
cheesebox hoops is the common swamp
elm. No other timber seems to possess
the same qualities Of lghtness, tough
ness and elasticity SO requisite for
cheeseboxes as this once despised prod
uct Of American forests. The logs, aft
or being cut in the proper lengths, gen..
orally 5 feet for an ordinary cheese
box Of 151a Or Is inches diameter, areI
thrown into long watts filed with water,
where they are boiled from 10 to 201
hours. The time required to soften the
timber, Or cook it, as the operation is
called, varies according to the size of .
the timber and the season. Large logs
require to be cooked longer than small
ones, particularly when the logs are
frozen. It is not uncommon to find the
center of a log still frozen after Is hours
of boiling.
Experience is the best guide in this
part Of the business, and to know when
the timber is thoroughly cooked and not
overdone is one of the things acquired
only by constant observation. When
sufficiently boiled the logs are lifted in
iron grapples from the watts and laid on
skids, where the bark is removed. Then
log is lifted by a crane and swung in
to place in the machine, where it is held
in horizontal position by chucks or
dogs that center it at each end.
In this position the log revolves like
roll of paper in a printing press The
knife which does the cutting is very
heavy and is bolted to heavy head
called carriage, which is fed forward
by screws toward the revolving log In
the most approved machines the knife
has an end Or oscillating as we'll as
forward motion. This reduces the strain
on the machine and permits the cutting
Of soft, unsound and shaky hearted logs
AS the knife comes in contact with the
timber, the inequalities of the log are
first shorn off and gradually the log be-
comes perfectly round and yields an I'M
broken sheet of lumber, like the unwind
ing of roll of cloth. This sheet of
wood is broken off in convenient