CHAPTER XX

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THE CHESHIRE CHEESE DISTRICT AND ENGLISH HUSBANDRY UPON HEAVY SOILS.—PASTURES.—THEIR PERMANENCE.—THE USE OF BONES AS A MANURE IN CHESHIRE.—A VALUABLE REMARK TO OWNERS OF IMPROVED NEAT STOCK.—BREEDS OF DAIRY STOCK.—HORSES.

[Sidenote: _SOIL AND CLIMATE IN CHEESE-MAKING._]

The soil of a considerable part of this county being a tenacious clay, favourable to the growth of grasses, and difficult of tillage, its inhabitants are naturally dairy-men, and it has been particularly distinguished for many centuries for its manufacture of cheese. Its distinction in this respect does not appear to be the result of remarkable skill or peculiar dairy processes, but is probably due to the particular varieties of herbage, to the natural productions of which, the properties of its soil, and perhaps of its climate, are peculiarly favourable.[18]

[18] The best cheese is made on cold, stiff, clay-soils (but not on the purest clays), and from the most _natural_ herbage, even from _weedy_, sterile pastures; but much the largest quantity is made from an equal extent of more moderately tenacious and drained or permeable soils spontaneously producing close, luxuriant, fine (not rank) grasses and white clover.

The grounds for this conclusion are the general value placed by the farmers upon their old pastures, where the natural assortment of herbage may be considered to have entirely obtained and taken the place of the limited number of varieties which are artificially sowed, the fact that the butter of the district is not, as a general rule, highly esteemed, and that I cannot learn that the process of cheese-making differs any more from that of other districts in England or the United States, than between different dairies producing cheese of equal value in this district itself.

It is by no means to be inferred, however, that the quality of cheese is not affected by the process of manufacture. There is no doubt that the skill and nicety of a superior dairy-maid will produce cheese of a superior quality on a farm of poor herbage, while an ignorant and careless one will make only an inferior description, no matter what the natural advantages may be. The best cheese made in the United States is quite equal to the best I have tasted here, but the average quality is by no means equal to the average quality of Cheshire cheese.

[Sidenote: _THE CHEESE-MAKING PROCESS._]

Superiority in the manufacture seems not to depend, however, upon any describable peculiarities of the process, which differs in no essential particular from that common in our dairies. Excellence is well understood to depend greatly upon extreme cleanliness in all the implements employed, and upon the purity and moderate temperature of the atmosphere. Means to secure the latter are used much the same as with us. Stoves and hot-water pipes are sometimes employed in the cheese-room; and I may mention that where this is in a detached building of one story, it is considered essential that it should have a thatched roof. In some cases where the roof has been slated, it has been found necessary in the warmest weather to remove the cheese to the cellar of the farm-house. Plank shelves are more generally used, and are esteemed better than stone.

Not only is there no uniformity in the methods of the different dairies to distinguish them from those of the United States, but rarely in any single dairy are there any exact rules with regard to the time to be employed in any parts of the process, or as to the temperature or the measure of any ingredients. Thus the degree of heat at setting the milk, although the skill to _feel_ when it is right is deemed highly important, is almost never measured, even in the best dairies. The quantity of rennet is guessed at, and its strength not exactly known. The quantity of salt used is undefined, and the time for _sweating_ or curing of the cheese, when made, is left to be accidental.

With regard to some of these points, however, it has been found (as reported to the Royal Agricultural Society) that in some of the best dairies the milk, when judged to be of the right temperature for coagulating, was by the thermometer at 82° F. (variations from 76° to 88°). From four to sixteen square inches of rennet skin in a pint of water (generally four square inches) were used to make the cheese from fifty gallons of milk, and 1 lb. to 1 lb. 4 ounces salt to the same quantity. It is thought that the best cheese is made with less salt than this. The heat of the milk-room was found to vary from 64° to 78° in August, and it was thought desirable that it should be cooler than this. The reporter thought that a temperature of 50° would be most approved throughout the year. I never saw or heard of ice being used in any way in a Cheshire dairy.

Some of the best dairy-maids claim to have _secrets_ by which they are enabled to surpass others, but it is certain that they do not lessen the necessity for extreme cleanliness, nicety, and close observation and judgment, and that with this, in addition to what is everywhere known and practised, there is no mystery necessary to produce the best.[19]

[19] “A cheese dairy is a manufactory—a workshop—and is, in truth, a place of hard work. That studied _outward neatness_ which is to be seen in the show dairies of different districts may be in character where butter is the only object, but would be superfluous in a cheese dairy. If the room, the utensils, the dairy-woman and her assistants be sufficiently _clean_ to give perfect sweetness to the produce, no matter for the _colour_ or the _arrangement_. The scouring-wisp gives an _outward fairness_, but is frequently an enemy to _real cleanliness_.”—MARSHALL’S VALE OF GLOUCESTER. Besides the means of securing this _inner_ cleanliness, sweetness, and purity, which must be of the air too, as well as of the utensils, &c., it is probable that the dairy-maids’ _secrets_ are in a knowledge of the best _temperature_, particularly of that at which the milk should be curdled.

The Cheshire cheese in market always has an unnaturally deep, yellow colour, though of late less so than formerly. It is given by the addition of “colouring” to the milk immediately before the rennet steep is applied. This “colouring” is manufactured and sold at the shops for the purpose. It is an imitation of annatto, formed chiefly of a small quantity of real annatto mixed with tumeric and soft soap. I think it is never used in sufficient quantity to affect the flavour at all, but I observe that the farmers and people in the country prefer cheese for their own use that is not coloured.

[Sidenote: _MILKING.—PASTURES.—BONES._]

_Whey Butter._ It is common in Cheshire to make butter from the whey. It will probably surprise many to learn that there is any cream left in whey; but _there_ undoubtedly is, and _it_ may be extracted by the same means as from milk. The only difference in the process is, that it is _set_ in large tubs, instead of small pans, and that the whey is drawn off by a faucet from the bottom after the cream has risen. If allowed to remain too long it will give a disagreeable flavour to the cream. One hundred gallons of milk will give ninety of whey, which will give ten or twelve gallons of cream, which will make three or four pounds of butter. So that besides the cheese, twenty to twenty-five pounds of butter are made in a year from the milk of each cow, an item of some value in a large dairy. The butter is of second-rate quality, but not bad—worth perhaps three cents a pound less than milk butter.

The farms in the country over which we walked in Cheshire were generally small, less, I should think, than one hundred acres. Frequently the farmer’s family supplied all the labour upon them,—himself and his sons in the field, and his wife and daughters in the dairy,—except that in the harvest month one or two Irish reapers would be employed. The cows, in the summer, are kept during the day in distant pastures, and always at night in a home lot. During the cheese-making season, which on these small farms is from the first of May till November, they are driven home and fastened in _shippens_, or sheds, between five and six o’clock, morning and night, and then milked by the girls, sometimes assisted by the men. On a farm of one hundred acres, fifteen to twenty cows are kept, and three persons are about an hour in milking them. From twenty to thirty gallons of milk (say six quarts from each cow) is expected to be obtained on an average, and about one pound of dried cheese from a gallon of milk. From two to five cwt. (of 112 lbs.) of cheese may be made from the milk of each cow during the year. Three cwt. is thought a fair return on the best farms. In a moderately dry and temperate summer, more cheese is made than in one which is very wet.

The pastures are generally looked upon as permanent, the night pastures are sometimes absolutely so, as it is supposed that they have not generally been broken up for many hundred years. During the last ten years the pasture lands have been very greatly, and, as they tell me, almost incredibly improved by the use of bone dust. It is applied in the quantity of from twenty to forty cwt. on an acre as top-dressing, and I was told that pastures on which it had been applied at the rate of a ton to an acre, eight or nine years ago, had continued as good (or able on an average of the years to bear as many cows) as similar land top-dressed with farm-yard dung every two years, probably at the rate of thirty cubic yards to an acre. There seems to be no doubt at all that land to which _inch_ bones were applied ten years ago are yet much the better for it. They are usually applied in April, and the ground is lightly pastured, or perhaps not at all until the following year. The effect, the farmers say, is not merely to make the growth stronger, but to make it sweeter; the cattle will even eat the weeds which before they would not taste of. However, in poor land especially, it is found to encourage the growth of the more valuable grasses more than that of the weeds, so that the latter are crowded out, and a clean, thick, close turf is formed. If the ground has been drained, all these improvements are much accelerated and increased. Upon newly _laid down_ lands, however, the effect is not so great; it is especially on old pastures (from which the extraction of the phosphates in the milk has been going on for ages sometimes, uninterruptedly) that the improvement is most magical. The productive value of such lands is very frequently known to have been doubled by the first dressing of bones.

Both boiled and raw bones are used, and though there is a general belief that the latter are more valuable, I do not hear of any experience that has shown it; on the contrary, I am told of one field which was dressed on different sides equally with each sort, and now, several years after, no difference has been observed in their effect. A comparison must, of course, be made by measure, as boiled bones are generally bought wet, and overweigh equal bulks of raw about 25 per cent. Dry bone-dust weighs from 45 to 50 lbs. to a bushel.

I have not heard of _super-phosphate of lime_, or bones dissolved in sulphuric acid, being used as a top-dressing for pastures.

[Sidenote: _IMPROVED DAIRY STOCK._]

I quote the following from the journal of the Royal Agricultural Society, as a mark of deep significance to American farmers, beyond its proof of the value of bones:—“Before bones came into use in this country, the farmers made a point of selecting a _hardy_ and _inferior_ description of stock for their clay lands, farmers finding that _large, well-bred cows did not at all answer upon them_; but now they find” (_in improved pasture_) “that the best of stock find ample support, not only to supply the cheese-tub freely, but also to _do justice to their lineage_, by retaining, if not improving, their size and symmetry, so that the farmer has not only the advantage of making considerably more cheese, but also of making more money by his turn of stock.”

I cannot now ascertain the amount of bones annually exported from the United States to England, but it must be very great, as I know one bone-miller, near New York, that has a standing order to ship all he can furnish at a certain price, and who last year thus disposed of 80,000 bushels.

_Breeds of Dairy Stock._—I have already described most of the dairy stock that we have observed along the road. We have seen scarcely any pure bred stock of any kind. Ayrshire blood seems to predominate and be most in favour on the best farms. The points of the short-horns are also common, and in the south we saw some Herefords. The best milkers seemed to be a mixed blood of Ayrshires and some other large and long-horned cattle with a smaller red and black breed, probably Welsh. I incline to think that experience has taught the dairy-men to prefer half or quarter bred stock to full bloods of any breed. For beef-making it is otherwise. I have seen no working oxen. Horses are the only beasts of draught on the farms; they vary greatly in quality, but are generally stout, heavy, hardy, and very powerful. On a farm of one hundred acres, three will be kept, sometimes four, and at about that rate on the larger farms, with an additional saddle-horse or two for his own use, if the farmer can afford it. Farmers generally raise their own cows, choosing heifer calves from their best milker for the purpose. Cattle are not commonly reared for sale here. Few sheep are raised, but many are brought lean from Wales and Ireland, and fatted here.

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