results. So, for instance, Professor Ercolani, in Turin, claims to have had good success with arsenate of strychnine, but others who have made the same experiments have had no success whatever. Lacase (Revue Vétér., etc., Toulouse, 1876), asserts to have been successful with large doses of alcohol, but he discriminates contagious and non-contagious glanders, and so no comment will be necessary. In former times cantharides were considered as a remedy, but later investigations have proved them to be perfectly worthless. That every kind of mercurial combination and a great many sure-cure nostrums have been used and been advertised as specific remedies, as in every other incurable disease, is too self-evident to need any further mentioning.

The only rational treatment of a horse or other animal affected with glanders, consists in a proper and effective application, in the right place, of either half an ounce of lead or five inches of steel; and until such treatment is invariably adopted, or made compulsory, there will be no prospect whatever of freeing this country from this loathsome disease, dangerous even to man, in whom, if once infected, it is just as incurable as in horses.

IMPROVEMENTS IN CHEESE MAKING.

A PAPER READ BEFORE THE AMERICAN DAIRYMEN'S CONVENTION.

BY PROF. L B. ARNOLD.

1

Agricultural products are seldom very uniform in quality. Those which are derived directly from the soil and depend chiefly on the soil and the season for their development, approximate nearer than those which, besides these agencies, require skill, judgment, attention, and animal life to be combined in their production. Hence animal products are more variable than those derived more immediately from the earth. Butter and cheese being of this class, they must be expected, even under the most favorable circumstances, to vary considerably in their characteristics. There are too many conditions involved in the conversion of grass, first into animal structure, then into milk, and then into butter or cheese, to allow of a close similarity in final results.

Is it not strange, then, that these commodities should be found so dissimilar as to vary widely in their commercial and food values, however much we may regret the fact. Cheese differs less than butter in its extremes, but it differs too much to allow of paying dividends from the lower grades. If the quality of cheese could become uniform, and all as good as the best, or as good as the circumstances under which it is made would permit, the production would become greatly enhanced both in extent and profit. Animal food is a necessity, and must be had, and it can be produced in the form of milk and cheese, cheaper than in the form of flesh. The food which would make 100 pounds of beef would, in approximate numbers, make 200 pounds of cheese or 2,000 pounds of milk. Each pound of cheese would equal at least two pounds of beef in nutritive value, if it could only be utilized as well as the beef. It is now hardly equal to one. A defect in the availability of its nutritive value is an acknowledged characteristic of cheese. It is not all faulty in this respect. There are exceptions, and these are an evidence of the possibility of making all as good as the best.

To make cheese of uniform quality, which would be as heathful and be as easily and perfectly utilized as other animal food, would be a most desirable attainment to reach, and of immense importance. Toward the accomplishment of such an end I have earnestly labored, especially for the past two years, and, as I believe, with a fair measure of success. The effort made has attracted some attention, and as along with the queries which have been raised and answered through the press, statements have been published, which have occasioned some confusion in regard to the nature and prosperity of my endeavors, I have been requesed to make to this convention a more precise and full statement of what I have advised in the way of manufacture, and in what respects, if any, the process I employ differs from modes previously in use.

While complying with this reasonable request, I propose to go a step further and explain some of the reasons which have led to the changes proposed, and in the mean time give a brief history of the progress of events connected with the work. To do this I will go back to the leading occurrence that induced me to step out of the beaten track in the line of cheese manufacture. In the summer of 1877, while experimenting to perfect a cheap and pure extract of calf's rennet, the fact was developed that the strength of the extract invariably, and soon entirely, disappeared when in the presence of any alkali. This being established, the inference was plain that the introduction of an alkali into any process of cheese making, which depends on the action of rennet, must be detrimental. Subsequent observations have verified such ån inference. It appeared that even the small quantity of potash and sal soda used in the preparation of anatto for coloring depresses the quality of the cheese and shortens the time of its keeping, and when more alkali of any kind has been introduced into the milk of which cheese was to be made, the cheese has suffered injury both in quality and keeping. In the experiments referred to, another fact of greater importance was developed, viz., that acids as well as alkalies invariably act unfavorably upon the strength of rennet, and that only neutral substances can be applied to it without injury. This at the time was a surprise. I had often observed that when an acid was added to the steepings of dried stomachs, coagulation was accomplished quicker, and more milk was curded with a given number of rennets, when used in connection with some acid, than when used alone, and the inference was made that the two agents aided each other, or at least, worked well together. But upon a careful investigation it turned out that the coagulating power of the rennet and acid, counted together, always fell below the sum of both, and that the strength of the rennet had been injured by

the added acid. The influence of acid upon the strength of rennet extract was different from that of the alkalies. The latter was more rapid and destructive. A very concentrated extract of rennet would soon be entirely destroyed by making the liquid in which it existed even feebly alkaline. Acids on the contrary, in most cases, acted slowly, and a few wholly destroyed the rennet power by their presence. Generally, they only abated its strength. But in no case, whether of animal, vegetable, or mineral origin, did they fail to weaken it.

Similar results, I have since learned, have been noted by the German chemists, Flieschmann, Soxhlet, and Hammerstien. In the light of these facts, the free use then made of acid in the manufacture of American cheese, became at once very questionable. The action of rennet, I knew, after coagulating the milk, played an important part in the con version of the curd into cheese, and if its action was injured by being immersed in an acid liquid the curing of the curd must be seriously interfered with. It is known to be a common result of employing acid in cheese making, whether it is put into the milk with the rennet or developed in the whey while the curd is lying in it, that it counteracts the curing process. As soon as the fact was settled that rennet was injured by contact with acid, I made a series of experiments to determine the comparative solubility of mature cheese made with and without acid, and found a marked difference in favor of the latter. Observations upon the use of acid cheese also made it very plain that the more acid there was employed in the manufacture, the more difficult of digestion it was in the human stomach, and that where it was mostly freely used, the cheese took on the characteristics of vertible skims, and were often mistaken for them in the market, and were, in fact, but little better than skims in actual value. So many facts all pointing in the same direction amounted to a demonstration that acid was not only not necessary nor desirable in cheese making, but that it stood greatly in the way of the prosperity of the dairy interest, and I resolved to make a stand against its use, and did so in an address at the first annual convention of the New York State Dairymen's Association, held at Syracuse in December, 1877.

The main point in what I then advanced, being new, was not at once fully appreciated, and, consequently, failures were often made by those who attempted to adopt it. This was nothing more than what was to be expected. The Cheddar process is now, I believe, over forty years old, and I am told by parties familiar with the cheese made on that plan in England and Scotland, that but a very small per cent. of it is really fine. The great bulk of it is decidedly faulty, and sells at a low price, the

dairies which bring the high figures quoted being very limited. It is very doubtful indeed whether the average price of all the cheddars made would make a better showing than our American cheese with all their faults, so very poor is much of it said to be. If an excellent mode, so long in use and often explained, still fails in a great majority of cases, it ought not to be wondered at if a new idea is not put into perfectly successful operation the moment it is born and christened.

But certain parties assert that nothing new has been advanced; that all I have put forward is but a repetition of old ideas and practices; representing in one breath that it is the old American dairy system in use before the adoption of factories, and in the next that is the Dunlop, Wiltshire, or Gloucester, and again that is only the Cheddar presented over again.

Since the question of novelty has been raised, I may as well explain, in this connection, just what is new in it and what is not. No one, that I am aware of, has claimed that every step in the process is new, but only that the distinctive features are new, which are: First. That the use or development of acid in any part of the operation of cheese making is injurious. This, I believe, at the time it was advanced, was new. Dr. Voelcker had, at a previous date, stated that acid is unnecessary in cheese making; but we have the emphatic declaration of Mr. Willard that he did not claim it is hurtful. Second. Ripening the curd up to a certain stage in the process of curing, or, if you please, cheesing, before pressing or salting. In all the other modes, that I am aware of, some other standard than that of cheesing is made the rule for determining when to salt and press. Third. The recognition of the digestive action of rennet as an important agent in process of curing, or more properly, cheesing. The idea that rennet has a digestive action has been discussed before, but as it has not, to any extent at least, been recognized as an essential agent in the ripening of cheese, I class it as a new feature. Fourth. Removing from curds by oxydation milk odors of all degrees of intensity, known as animal odor and taints, and all vegetable odors, as of turnips, cabbages, strong weeds, leeks, etc., carried into the curds through the milk. This is a recent achievement, giving complete control over tainted milk so called, and is peculiar to my practice. I know of no other process in use by which either milk or vegetable odors are removed from curds. Acid is much employed to hold milk odors in abeyance for a time, but it neither removes nor destroys them. Their removal is counteracted by developing acid. The process consists of the most effective and availble means, from whatever source derived, for carrying out these main deas. Old modes of working have been adopted as far as they could be