The Country Housewife's Family Companion - Part 5



Of the Butter and Cheese Dairy.

IN many parts of England a fresh butter-dairy is thought to return the 
greatest profit, when it is carry'd on within forty miles, or something 
better of London, because at this distance of it, the carrier or higler 
can convey it timely and sweet enough for a beneficial market; but a much 
farther distance from the metropolis obliges the dairy farmer to salt down 
his butter in earthen pots, tubs, or barrels, against a proper sale time; 
for which Suffolk and Yorkshire are famous. And it is thought by some, 
that making of butter is more profitable than either making of cheese or 
suckling of calves (unless the two last are carried on by the feed of 
artificial grass) because in making of butter, there is skim milk for the 
service of a family, which will in some cases supply the use of new milk, 
especially if oatmeal or some other right ingredient is mix'd with it.

   Of a Vale Butter Dairy.--There is no great difference between some Vale 
dairy farms, and some Chiltern dairy farms. In vales they seldom feed 
their horned cattle on any but natural grass and its hay, because most of 
their land is unfit for clover, ray grass, saintfoin, trefoil, lucern, 
turneps, &c. But although they want these profitable conveniencies, which 
most Chiltern farmers enjoy, yet are these deficiencies much compensated 
by the richness of their pasture and meadow ground; for as it is generally 
of a fat blackish marly nature, and lies low near the warm springs, they 
have a bite of grass, when that on hilly land is cut off by frosts or by 
heats, which has such an excellent feeding quality in it, that if a cow 
can but have enough for a bite, and plenty of water with it, she will milk 
well, which is what cannot be said of the upland meadow. But where their 
low wet ground produces rushy or coarse flashy grass, it causes a cow to 
give a poor watry milk, and that a pale rankish butter: For it is a true 
maxim, that as the feed is, so is the milk, butter, and cheese.

   Furniture necessary for carrying on a Butter Dairy in Vale or Chiltern 
Countries.--These are a churn, leaden coolers, ashen tubs and pails, brass 
or earthen glazed pans, sieves, straining-cloths, butter trenchers, wooden 
shaping dishes, trays, baskets, weights and scales, &c. The churn may be 
either of the barrel or the upright sort. I use both; the barrel, when I 
churn a large quantity; the upright, when I churn less. The barrel is 
certainly the best sort, because it is work'd with the least labour, with 
the least waste of cream, and with a much more regular motion. By the 
barrel churn, one man alone can sometimes churn four or five dozen pounds 
without the least loss of cream, when one dozen pounds will sometimes make 
it hard work for him to churn it in an upright one, with the loss of some 
cream that unavoidably will plash up and waste in the top part. And what 
likewise much contributes to the making of good butter is, if a dairy with 
a sufficient number of cows belonging to it be furnished with leaden 
coolers, which are always made in a square form, from two foot square, to 
two foot one way and four another. These are first made boarded frames, 
and then lined with mill'd lead, that are to stand unremoved; for here the 
milk lying shallow and wide, the cream may be commodiously taken off, by 
letting the skim milk or under milk easily out by a cork-hole, and the 
lead readily washed and cleaned. In short, these profitable square leaden 
receivers or coolers are the very best contrivance of all others for a 
dairy farmer's interest, especially throughout the summer season, for in 
hot weather they will cast up the most cream and as these were first made 
in Buckinghamshire and Bedfordshire, near me, I send them to gentlemen at 
any distance, on a proper order. The next is the shallow tub, which is 
preferred to lead by some for its cheapness, and for keeping milk in a 
less compass, and warmer in winter, and thereby raising the more cream. 
But these have also their inconveniencies, for by their being sooner apt 
to fur and sour the cream than lead, they are with more difficulty clean'd 
and dry'd. And why I mention them to be made with ash (as well as milking 
pails) is, because this wood is white, and easily kept so, to the delight 
of the dairy-maid. The next sort of dairy utensils, for holding milk and 
raising cream, are brass pans: These in former days were much more in use 
than at this time, though by many they are still thought more proper for a 
hot dairy than earthen glazed pans. Others are of opinion, they are unfit 
for either a cold or hot dairy. Some again say, they are the best sort for 
both, because they are light in hand, and more easily and safely cleaned 
than tubs or earthen pans, provided they have a right management bestowed 
upon them, as they will then give the cream no ill taste; for which 
purpose they must be presently clean'd after the milk is out of them, and 
always made thoroughly dry before more is put in; nor must the milk remain 
too long in them. The sixth sort of dairy utensil is the earthen glazed 
pan: These in small dairies are in general use, because they are cheap, 
handy, cool, easily clean'd, and soon dry'd, but are very subject to be 
crack'd by scalding water, and to be broke by accident; however, they are 
serviceable both in hot and cold dairies. And as to their cracking by 
scalding water, I will by and bye shew a way to prevent it. The seventh 
dairy utensil is a hair straining-sieve: This is a very serviceable one, 
and must be had of a proportionable size to the dairy. A large sieve is 
about 18 inches wide, and the hoop six inches deep; for by this bigness it 
readily receives and discharges a large quantity of milk through it, 
leaving all hairs and other filth behind.

   The Improvement of Milk and Cream.--The improvement of milk and cream 
is chiefly to be obtained by cleanliness, timely skimmings, and preserving 
the cream sweet, which three articles I shall make my observations on. And 
first of cleanliness, which I here mention as a preliminary one, for being 
the foundation of making good butter. A company of farmers discoursing on 
this subject said--Such a one is an excellent dairy-maid, for she always 
in summer and winter boils the water she washes her dairy things with.--
For which purpose, no farm-house, where six or more milch cows are kept, 
should be without a fixt copper in it, to heat a good quantity of water at 
once, not only for washing the milky utensils, but also for scalding 
pails, and those other smaller things that are not too large for being 
boiled in it. The square, shallow, leaden vessels indeed need not be 
scower'd with hot water in winter, but in summer it is absolutely 
necessary, and should always be scower'd with soft soap-boilers white 
ashes, or with fine sifted wood ashes, or with white salt, or with very 
soft sand; and this with either soft leather, straw, or hay; for hard coal-
ashes, hard pearl-ashes, or hard sand, would be apt to give the smooth 
mill'd thin lead or tub a rough or furring coat. In the next place, no 
servant man or boy ought to have freeness into the dairy-room, because 
they are apt to take a lick of the cream, or a cut of the butter, and 
leave some dirt of their feet behind them, which turning to dust, may 
damage the milk and cream. In short, a dairy floor ought to lie on a 
pretty sharp descent, for carrying off all spilt milk or water often 
employed in washing it; for without a dairy-room is kept cool and sweet in 
summer, little good butter is to be expected. A dairy-room being thus kept 
clean and in good order, the milk should have twelve hours in hot weather 
before it is skimmed the first time, but in cold weather as long again, 
for making the best and most prime butter. In some dairies they let their 
milk remain more than two days and two nights, for skimming off two or 
three creams, till it looks of a whitish blue colour, and then they think 
this skim milk good enough for hogs. And to keep a parcel of cream in a 
sweet condition, till enough is got together for churning, there must be 
both care and art employed; for although cream may be skimmed in right 
order, yet it may be damaged if not spoiled in keeping. To prevent which, 
the most common practice in hot seasons is to empty the cream out of one 
scalded glazed earthen pot every day into another, till cold weather comes 
in, and then once doing this in two or three days time will be sufficient. 
Others are of opinion, that if cream is set in a very cool place, it need 
not be shifted but once in two days in summer, and but once in four days 
in winter, stirring it about at every shifting; yet there are some farmers 
who are obliged to churn but once a week, and keep their cream 
accordingly: In this case they are forced to boil now and then a parcel of 
cream, for putting it to more raw cream to preserve it sound, or to put 
some hot milk from the cow to it, or add some salt to it.

   The Use of the new-invented Barrel Churn in Winter.--A barrel churn is 
so late an invention, that the uses of it are known but in few counties in 
England. Buckinghamshire and Bedfordshire justly claim the first practice 
of this most serviceable dairy utensil, that every year comes more and 
more into fashion, for its being easily and quickly clean'd, as well as 
its being work'd with much facility and least waste of cream, and 
expeditiously producing the sweetest butter. I know of no author besides 
myself that has wrote on the profitable uses of this excellent barrel 
churn. And as there is a late improvement found out, and added to it, more 
than I have taken notice of in this or in any of my former works, I intend 
hereafter amongst many others to insert a cut of it in my book to be 
intituled New Discoveries of Improvements in Husbandry.--In winter time, a 
little before this barrel churn is used, my dairy-maid pours boiling water 
into it, and after giving it two or three turns in a quarter of an hour, 
the water is discharged, and the common straining-cloth is placed over the 
bung-hole, for straining the cream thro' it into the churn. When the 
wooden bung is fasten'd in, the work begins near the fire-side to preserve 
the heat the hot water left behind it; for if the cream gets colder, the 
butter will be the longer coming; therefore a quick turning of the handle, 
like that of a grindstone, to beat and keep the cream warm, is perfectly 
necessary in cold weather especially. And such turning should be perform'd 
with a constant as well as even stroke, for the better separating the oily 
or buttery part from the thinner part of the cream; for if the cream is 
turn'd too slow in winter, you may perhaps churn a day together and not 
get butter. Hence it is, that for preventing any intermission in working 
the barrel churn, when one is tired, another continues the same quick 
stroke, till they find the cream slops more lumpy than before. Now in 
churning with a barrel churn, the maid is obliged every now and then to 
pluck out the vent peg, for letting out the wind that the barrel contracts 
in beating the cream into a fermentation and this she does mostly in the 
beginning of her work, perhaps five or six times in all; and when she 
thinks the butter is come, she turns slowly, for causing it to gather into 
a body sooner, and by taking out the peg she can better tell is it is so; 
for if the butter is a little come, there will be an appearance of it like 
little pins heads: When it is fully come, she lets out the butter-milk, 
and gathers the butter into parcels or lumps.

   The Use of the Barrel Churn in Summer.--There must be different methods 
made use of in churning butter in summer than in winter, and the same in 
several other branches of the dairy. In summer, contrary to the winter 
practice, we rince the barrel churn with cold water just before we put in 
our cream, and begin and continue churning an even slow stroke, in order 
to prevent beating the cream into too great a heat, for in sultry hot 
weather, notwithstanding the churn is so rinced with cold water, butter 
has come in less than half an hour's time, which in frosty weather would 
not perhaps under an hour, two, or more. And herein lies much of a dairy-
maid's care and art; for if this churn is turned too fast, the violence of 
the motion will be apt to overheat the cream, and then the butter comes 
irregular, is very difficult to gather into lumps, looks pale like grease, 
has a very rank taste, and will not keep.

   The Use of the Upright Churn, &c.--This is the most ancient and most 
common churn now in use, chiefly because the use of the barrel churn is 
not more known. If a large quantity of butter is to be made at once, it 
cannot be done in an upright churn, because it neither admits of room 
enough, nor strength enough to work it in the common way by one person. 
But as there is an improvement found out and made use of, to work this 
churn with more ease than in the common way, I intend to give a cut of it 
in one of my books as beforementioned. However, I will suppose butter made 
to the greatest advantage in this churn, yet it must be done in a far less 
quantity, in a more laborious, and in a more wasteful way than in a large 
barrel churn. It is true, that an upright churn gives a person an 
opportunity to place its bottom part in a tub of warm water, to keep the 
cream in such a heat as will expedite the coming of the butter; but then 
we account it almost an equivolent conveniency, when we rince the barrel 
churn with scalding water, and work it before a fire. There are wooden 
upright churns and earthen upright churns, both which in winter and summer 
causes the churner much labour, and especially so, if the cream is stale, 
for then the butter seldom comes under two hours working; therefore when 
these sorts are made use of, butter should be churned in them twice a 
week; for the newer the cream, and the oftner the churn is used, the 
sooner the butter will come.

   How to make Butter from the Food of Clover, Trefoil, Ray-grass, or 
Lucern Grasses.--As I am owner of various sorts of earths; amongst the 
rest, I have some felds of a gravelly and chalky nature: These I have sown 
with ray-grass, trefoil, saintfoin, and lucern grasses, as I have done my 
stiff loams with clover, &c. Now to make good butter from the food of any 
of these grasses, is what very few know how to do; but I shall endeavour 
to shew how it may be done from my own practice, for I keep a dairy in a 
Chiltern country, and feed my cows with both artificial and natural 
grasses, and as a few of my felds lie at such a distance from my house, 
that it would hurt and make my cows feet sore to drive them daily to and 
from it, and thereby greatly lessen their due quantity of milk (for a 
little way driving a cow does much mischief in this respect) I oblige my 
servant to mow a parcel of artificial grass every day, or every second or 
third day, and bring it home in a cart, for laying and spreading it thinly 
over a covered floor, in order to give it my cows in racks under cover, 
undisturb'd from flies, and free from suffering by the scorching heats of 
the sun. Thus I feed them (this present summer, 1749) without danger of 
hoving or swelling them; a misfortune so incident to cows, when they feed 
on clover especially, and on lucern grass in the field, that thousands 
have been killed by it; but trefoil, saintfoin, and ray-grass, are the 
least subject to hove and swell the beast, and I am certain that a good 
butter may be made from any of these three grasses, if a right management 
attends the milk, the cream, and the making of the butter; to which I add, 
that where a very large dairy is carried on, and many acres of land are 
sown with artificial grass for this purpose, and where cow-houses are 
situated near the field, there I say it would be of great advantage to a 
farmer to mow any of these grasses every day, for giving it in due 
quantities to cows; because the fresher it is thus given, the more milk it 
will produce. And thus a person may go on mowing every day except Sundays, 
from the beginning of May to Michaelmas, and to provide for Sundays, it is 
only mowing a double quantity on Saturdays, which may be very conveniently 
done, where much ground is laid down with such grass, for by the time the 
mower gets to the end of it, he may begin again where he first began to 
cut. This therefore gives a farmer, that occupies large tracts of such 
grazing land, a far greater opportunity to make more of his dairy than a 
small farmer can, who for want of room is deprived of this valuable 
opportunity. Supposing then, that a farmer enjoys these conveniencies, one 
acre of good sowed artificial grass will keep two cows as well as two 
acres of meadow land can; and provided he has a good cellar and all 
necessaries, if he has not good butter, it is for want of skill and right 
management, which leads me to observe, that there are ways of making 
butter good from artificial grasses--First, that our housewife begins in 
May at furthest, and holds the same till Michaelmas, to skim her milk 
every twelve hours, that milk'd in the morning at night, and that milk'd 
at night in the morning; for if cream stands too long on this milk in 
summer, it will surely cause the butter to taste rank. And as a further 
security against this evil, a true housewife will boil her earthen cream 
pots well, and not use them before she has set them abroad, to make them 
thoroughly cold, for shifting the cream into them; and where a person 
keeps a sufficient number of cows for producing cream enough, to boil some 
to put to the raw cream, and churn once in two days. In short, to prevent 
any rankness of taste in butter made from foreign grasses, the sweeter the 
utensils are kept, the sooner the butter is churned. The more it is washed 
in different waters before it is made up into pounds, and the more it is 
beaten between two trenchers to clear it of the milk, the sweeter will be 
the butter, and the longer it will keep so: Which brings to my memory the 
loss that a gentleman sustain'd by having a bad dairy-maid.

   The Loss that a Gentleman sustained by keeping a lazy sluttish Dairy-
maid.--This gentleman was a bachelor well advanced in years, and owner of 
a very large farm, where sixteen cows and a bull had been kept on the 
grazing part of it, who (being obliged to take his farm into his own 
hands) was so opinionated in his ways, that it was very hard to convince 
him of his errors: Amongst which, one was his keeping an unskilful, lazy, 
sluttish dairy-maid, that frequently had very rank butter, by means of her 
ill management of her utensils, her milk, her cream, and her churning; 
insomuch that the common higler, that customarily bought it for selling it 
at a London market, refused it several times on account of its ill 
properties, which obliged the gentleman to send it about the neighbouring 
parts of the country, and get what price he could for it, to his loss, for 
that such damaged butter was sold for little more than half the price good 
butter would then fetch; which I think is hint enough to shew the value of 
a skilful diligent clean dairy-maid. For these reasons it is that I have 
been employed by gentlemen to send them dairy-maids out of the Vale of 
Aylesbury, as I live near the edge of it, and have an opportunity to hire 
those of a good character, and who are well qualifed to make good butter 
and cheese. This therefore is to inform all gentlemen and ladies, that if 
they will give encouraging wages, I undertake to provide and send those 
that I hope will fully answer their expectation: I also on a proper order 
am ready to furnish them with any number of square leads, barrel churns, 
or any other dairy utensils.

   The Nature and Value of After-Butter.--This sort of butter is more 
conveniently made in large dairies than in small ones: After-butter is 
that which is made from the second skimmings of milk; after the first 
cream is taken off, they let it stand till more cream arises, and there be 
enough to make another parcel of butter. By this they have a prime fine 
sort, and a second coarse sort. Now both these are sold in many markets as 
well as at chandlers shops in towns and in country, without many buyers 
knowing that one is made of the first cream, and the other of the second 
and worse. And it is this after-butter that serves many of the 
unconscionable sort to sell it as prime or first butter to two sorts of 
people, one that has money and no judgment to distinguish it, and the 
other that has judgment and not money, and therefore dares not dispute it 
with their creditor shop-keeper, because they can't pay for it on 
delivery: And thus poor people generally pay as much for this after-butter 
as for the first and better sort. Notwithstanding this, after-butter is 
commonly sold to the connoisseurs in a market for three half-pence a pound 
less than the prime or better sort. It is often the very same case in the 
sale of whey butter, of which much is made in cheese countries, where to 
preserve their whey cream they boil some to put to raw cream, and churn it 
twice a week; for by boiling some it lessens rankness of taste, and helps 
to keep it sweet the longer.

   Artifices sometimes made use of to expedite the Churning of Butter.--
When necessity provokes the dairy-maid to make use of more than ordinary 
art for hastening the butter coming, it never is so good as when the cream 
is churn'd into butter by only a regular and timely working of the churn; 
for if hot water, hot milk, or hot cream, is added to the cream after it 
is begun churning, it is a sort of violence used upon its true nature: The 
same when pieces of money, or any other thing is put into the churn for 
the same purpose; yet to save time and labour, one or more of these 
remedies is sometimes made use of, but then this is commonly owing to some 
mismanagement of the milk or the cream, &c. As when the milk freezes in 
the leads or pans, or when cream is very stale by being too long on the 
milk, or kept in a pot too long before it is churn'd, or when the churn is 
too cold in winter time at putting the cream into it, or when too great an 
intermission is suffer'd in churning, &c.

   How a certain Farmer manages his Milk and Cream, and churns his 
Butter.--This farmer makes altogether use of a barrel churn, and one of 
the largest sort; because he keeps twenty cows, and generally churns six 
dozen pounds of butter at a time, by turning its two handles with two mens 
labour. In winter they let a pail full of boiling water lie in the churn 
close stopt up for a little while, to heat the wood, and better prepare it 
for receiving the cream and bringing it into butter the sooner: But for a 
greater security of this, they boil a gallon of the cream taken from the 
same morning's skimmings; when it is ready, they put it into the churn to 
all their cold cream and churn away, and if it get cold, and is longer 
than ordinary in coming, they pour in some scalding water. Thus this 
farmer churns, and the better for preparing his milk and cream to produce 
the best and most butter in winter, he distributes some of the last and 
best milk or stroakings amongst his pans of milk, and in summer he applies 
cold spring water in like manner, designing by both to raise the most 
cream and keep it sweet the longest; and to make his barrel churn answer 
his expectation in hot weather, he puts boiling water into it at morning 
to scald it, and after it has lain in it a quarter of an hour, he empties 
it, and pours in cold water to stand two or three hours, which he empties, 
for putting in the cream directly to be churned.

   How a neat Housewife had the sweetest of Butter.--She kept two large 
milch cows always on natural grass or hay, and during all the summer-time 
she used to skim every meal's milk, that is to say, she skim'd twice a 
day, and got three or four pints of cream each time which she boiled in a 
skillet, that she wash'd, but not scour'd, for if she scour'd her brass 
skillet, it would cause the milk or cream to taste of it; and as she 
churn'd but twice a week, she thus kept her cream sweet in the hottest 
weather, and had the very best of butter. Not like another, who, to make 
her butter have a yellowish cast, would at every cow's calving in winter-
time, for the first two or three meals, put a dish or two of what we call 
beastings or beastning into her good cream.

   Of several Sorts of Food, that occasion Cows Milk to make indifferent 
Butter, with Ways to help it.--Of these I shall take notice in particular, 
because no author has yet done it, as they relate to milk, butter, cheese, 
and flesh.--Turneps, cole or rape, green or dry thetches or vetches, are 
none of them so sweet and good as the feed of the most excellent natural 
lady-finger-grass seeds, tyne-grass seeds, honey-suckle seeds, and 
another. Turneps give milk so rank a taste, that it is easily perceived by 
the eater; cole or rape a worse, especially when it is old; somewhat of 
the like does green thetches and clover, but saintfoin, trefoil, and ray-
grass are better: Thus also do the leaves of trees affect the milk in 
September and October, when they fall; likewise in April there is little 
good fresh butter to be had, because this month being between grass and 
hay, some farmers are necessitated still to give their milch cows dry 
thetches in straw, that are of a hot bitterish nature; or pea-straw, bean-
straw, or indeed any straw where hay or better food is wanting. Grains 
alone produce but a watery insipid milk, but when mixt with chaff, bran, 
or malt dust, it does much better: Now as these sorts of food do not breed 
a delicate sweet milk, there are two ways to help it; one is by skimming 
such milk soon and only once, and with such cream to make butter, but the 
best way of all is to scald the milk in part, or in the whole; that is to 
say, if some of the cream is scalded and put to the raw cream, it will 
help to lessen the ill taste of butter, but much better if all the milk is 
scalded; and how to scald it, I shall presently shew. In the mean time, I 
think it necessary to acquaint my reader with the pleasant and healthy 
effects of four sorts of natural grass and their hay, as they relate to 
the making of the sweetest butter and flesh.

   The Character of the Lady-finger Grass and its Hay, &c.--This is a true 
hardy natural grass of English growth, exceeding in sweetness and goodness 
all other grasses whatsoever. These qualities are truly warranted by even 
the cattle that feed in meadows where it grows, for they will eat this 
first and before all others; and whether it is given in grass or hay, it 
invites and feeds fawns, deer, lambs, sheep, and bullocks, and makes them 
fat with great expedition, producing the sweetest and wholsomest of flesh. 
When cows feed on it, they yield a milk that makes the finest of yellow-
colour'd butter and cheese, and which is prefer'd for being drank from the 
cow, as conducing the more to the health of the drinker; and the same for 
its cream to mix with tea, for as a physician well observes, milk, tho' in 
its own nature healthy, is more or less so as the feeding of the cows and 
the disposition of the cattle are. This lady-finger grass I am the first 
discoverer of, for makeing it known in this publick manner. It will grow 
in the poorest or richest ground of any sort; and, if it be not mowed too 
soon, it will prove in a great degree corn and hay, for it is a podded 
grass. Hence I am led to observe, that it has been a reigning ill custom 
for persons to lay down their plow'd ground with a promiscuous mixture of 
common grass seed; by which means they may sow the seeds of plantane, 
hemlock, rennet-wort, crow-garlick, horse-mint, clivers, dog-parsley, 
penny-grass, couch or quitch grass, clob-weed, white-ash, sorrel, dock, 
and yellow and white daisy-flower sort, &c.--The plantane by its broad 
leaves hinders the growth of better grass. The penny or rattle grass has 
its faults. Quitch-grass is a sour and coarse sort, unfit to grow in any 
ground. The knot or clob-weed grass is a very great brancher, has high 
thick stalks and knobs at their ends like buttons, is a great increaser, 
and hinders the growth of better grass, therefore it provokes some to 
stock it up with a mattock. White-ash is much rejected by cattle, and so 
is the sour sorrel, for hardly any will eat it. The same may be said of 
the bitter yellow flower and daisy, &c.--The ladyfinger-grass seed I sell 
(as aforesaid) with three other sorts of the natural kind, and send them 
to any person on a proper order, with such directions for their 
management, that they need lose no time in obtaining a lasting meadow of 
the same. Two gallons of milk from the best grass that grows have produced 
as much cream as three gallons from flashy or weedy grass: This lady-
finger grass, which (as I said) is the most excellent of all other grass, 
with the three others, gives a cow a milk that produces in the calf a bag 
of the most value for making the best of rennet, and consequently the best 
of cheese. And that persons may know how to come by these four sorts of 
natural grass-seed, if any will send me a letter, I will answer it, 
provided postage is paid to my house at Little-Gaddesden, near Hempstead, 
in Hertfordshire, which stands thirty miles to the northward of London.--
The expence of laying down one acre will be as follows, viz. Three pounds 
of lady-finger grass-seed, seven shillings and six-pence; four pounds of 
tyne seed, four shillings; four of honeysuckle seed, four shillings; four 
of another grass-seed, four shillings; in all nineteen shillings and six-
pence. And to sow the land effectually with these seeds, it must be first 
plowed till it is as fine almost as ashes; and after the seed is sown, 
there must be a particular cheap sort of manure sowed over the same that I 
can specify, to prevent the ill effects of too long drought, slugs, worms, 
flies, and frosts; and to fertilize the surface, so as to push forward the 
growth of the seed with expedition.


The exact Method of preparing Scalded Cream for making it into Butter the 
Devonshire Way, by a Correspondent at Stowford, near Ivy-bridge, Feb. 25, 
1746-7.

SIR,

According to your desire, I herewith send you our exact method of making 
butter from scalded cream. The morning's milk is commonly set over the 
embers about four o'clock in the afternoon; but this varies according as 
they have more or less of these embers in a right heat, for many will set 
their milk over them as soon as they have done dinner, as there is then 
commonly a good quantity of them free of smoak, and are ready without the 
trouble of making them on purpose. The evening's milk is commonly set over 
them about eight o'clock next morning, sooner or later; however, care must 
be taken not to do it before the cream is well settled on the milk, which 
will be in the beforementioned time. And as to the quantity of milk we 
scald at once, it is very different: From one gallon in a pan to three or 
more; and the measure of each pan of the biggest size is three gallons, or 
three and a half. There are pans of several sizes less, but the most 
common quantity is about two gallons, or two and a half in each brass pan; 
and brass pans are commonly used for this purpose, as they are certainly 
the best of all other inventions, because the milk will both heat and cool 
sooner, and far more safe than in the earthen sort; for these (especially 
in summer-time) are too long in cooling; and as the cream cannot be used 
before it is cold, these earthen pans are in disuse. I never saw any of 
them used in this manner but at Sir John Rogers's: Their reason was, that 
they are something sweeter than brass pans; and I must confess they are 
so, if the brass ones are not kept in the nicest order possible. As to the 
height of the pans standing above the embers, it is according to the 
height of the iron trevit, which is commonly about six inches, with this 
difference; if on a stove six inches, if on a hearth eight inches, the 
latter being most in use. As to the exact time of scalding the milk, to 
have a full clouted cream on it, it is about one hour; yet this varies 
according to the heat of the embers, and therefore it is sometimes two or 
more hours, but seldom less than one. However, a moderate heat is best for 
raising the thickest cream; and you may easily discover when it is scalded 
enough, by a little swelling of the cream, and then it must be immediately 
taken off the fire. That which is scalded in the morning must be skim'd in 
the evening; and that in the evening or afternoon the next morning, with 
the hand only. When they have but little to scald at once, they save 
several meals together, and then scald it; but this does not make the best 
butter. When they have no embers, they use clean dry wood to burn under 
the pans, but they always refuse to burn rotten wood, because it is apt to 
give the butter an ill taste. The chimney must be kept very clean from 
soot, lest any drop into the milk. Sometimes, when the pans are not very 
clean, they rub them with bay-leaves (or in case they are very bad, they 
boil the leaves in the water they wash and scour the pans with) for these 
leaves are great sweetners and cleansers, and should be frequently used 
for this purpose, especially in the summer time.


The exact Method of churning scalded Cream into Butter, according to the 
Devonshire Way.

SIR,

I have further to add, that our method of churning scalded cream is the 
most expeditious of any I ever saw, and is done with the least trouble. 
The butter is made in a large wooden bowl, or shallow tub, according to 
the quantity; and this they do by keeping the hand with the fingers half 
bent in a constant stirring of the cream at the bottom of the wooden bowl 
or tub. Sometimes in less than a quarter of an hour the butter will come; 
at longest they seldom exceed half an hour. And this will be performed the 
sooner, by observing (when you begin to make the butter) to save out all 
the thinnest of the cream, untill the thicker harder sort begins to turn, 
and then add the thin cream; for the thicker part being of a harder 
consistence, is the chief cause of the butter being so expeditiously made. 
The quantity of butter made at once is from a quarter of a pound to ten 
pounds, but seldom more than ten. The greatest trouble in a large quantity 
of butter is in washing it, beating it, and making it up. Of the quantity 
of milk that will make so much butter I can't give you any exact account, 
for experience only must do this, because six quarts of some cows milk 
will produce as much butter as eight of others: Different pasture will 
cause it to vary much. But to give you the best account I can, I must add, 
that a pint of hard cream is reckon'd to produce one pound of butter; 
which I believe you may depend on, as I had it from one of our most 
credible dairy neighbours. As to the way of making up the butter, it is 
the same as your's. I think I need not enlarge further, because I hope 
this will give you satisfaction from, Sir, your most obedient servant.--
This account came to me with several others from a servant I sent to live 
with John Williams, Esq; at Stowford aforesaid, who being a bachelor did 
not make butter, but bought it of his neighbours (I suppose his tenants.) 
This young man, well skilled in husbandry affairs, lived in this country 
about three years, and collected for me several valuable improvements.

   A Somersetshire Dairy-Maid's Account of making Butter with scalded 
Cream.--She says, they strain their milk directly from the cow in the 
evening into brass or earthen pans, and set them on iron-leg'd trevits, 
high enough for burning wood under them, which must be of the dry sort, 
that it may burn with the least smoak. But the burning of charcoal in 
stoves under the pans is the more regular and sweeter way of heating the 
milk. There are several signs to know (says she) when the milk is scalded 
enough; one is, by feeling it with the finger, for when you can but just 
bear it in the milk, it is in a right heat to take off; a second is, when 
the milk appears crinkly on the top; a third is, by the dull sounding of 
the brass pan: Then take off the pan, and set it by till next morning. But 
the milk must not boil, for if it does, it is spoiled for making butter; 
because the cream will then rise like skin, cut streaky and white, and 
waste away in little scales: Therefore if a pan of milk boils, they never 
make use of its cream to make butter. Next morning they take the cream off 
with a skimming-dish, or with the hand, and in cold weather put it by for 
one, two, or three days, till they have got enough together for churning; 
then they put all the cream into a tub, and stir it about with the hand or 
with a ladle, till butter comes. This is the way (she says) of churning 
and making butter. She also says, that the buttermilk by this management 
is very sweet, and (if mixt with skim milk and some new milk) will make 
good cheese. She also further says, that to make butter from clover, 
saintfoin, raygrass, or lucern-grass, so as to prevent its eating rank, 
the right way is to make the butter from this hot dairy, because the 
scalding of the milk in a great degree lessens the misfortune. This old 
experienced dairy-maid assured me, that she made butter two ways, when at 
home with her father, a considerable farmer; one by the cold, and the 
other by the hot dairy; and that they sold their scalded butter for more 
money than that made in the common old way of setting the milk cold.

   The Somersetshire Way to secure their earthen glazed Pans from 
cracking, that are to be used for scalding Milk.--In this county (the 
dairy-maid says) their way to prevent the fire from cracking their earthen 
pans, which they scald their milk in, is to grease them all over the 
outside with fresh hogslard, and when it is thoroughly dry'd into them by 
a fire-side, or by the wind or sun, they may then be safely made use of to 
scald milk in.

   The Hertfordshire Way to prevent earthen Pans from cracking.--In this 
county we make no more to do for preventing earthen pans from cracking by 
the fire, than to soak them before using in cold water a day or longer, 
after which they may be put into a very hot oven with a pye or pudding, or 
meat, without danger; nor will hardly one of them in twenty crack, if 
boiling water is put in, but will last perhaps as long again as if nothing 
was done to them.

   The Welsh Way of colouring Butter.--Several dairy people in Wales take 
care to sow that sort of marigold-seed that produces double flowers, and 
as these in a rich earth and warm situation will grow almost throughout a 
mild winter, they seldom want wherewithal to colour their butter; in order 
thereto, they bruise the flowers in a mortar, then put them into a rag, to 
squeeze out their juice amongst the butter, which, on being work'd in, 
will give it a fine yellow colour and wholesome quality.--Others say a 
little bruised saffron in water will supply it; but as marigolds are 
readiest and cheapest, every dairy farmer in particular should have a bed 
of them, for as much as a quantity of their flowers will yield a 
quintessence little inferior to saffron for many uses.

   Of salting, potting, and barrelling Butter, and how to know good Butter 
from that which is bad.--The salting of butter is the more necessary to 
treat of, as there are several sorts of butter potted and barrel'd, and 
more than one way of doing it: There is an after-butter, a whey-butter, a 
damaged butter, and a new good butter, salted down. The after-butter is 
that fresh sort made from the second skimmings of milk. The whey fresh 
butter is that made from the skimmings of whey, which produces but a poor 
cream, rather worse than the last. The damaged butter may at first be a 
good sort of fresh butter, but for want of sale it becomes stale and rank, 
or it may be that butter that is damaged by some extream in making. The 
new fresh butter wants no explanation. The after or back butter generally 
begins to be made in May, and continues so till near Lammas-day, by which 
the dairy farmer has an opportunity to make the very best prime fresh 
butter, for which they skim their milk at twelve hours end, and likewise 
take the same time for skimming their after or second cream. Now to know 
such after or back butter, the first fresh butter is generally yellow 
coloured, from the flowers that the cow eats at this time of year; but the 
other tastes earthy, is whiter, and a little rankish. The whey they skim 
once in twenty-four hours, is whitish coloured, and has a little taste of 
the cloth and the cheese, and the same it is when these two sorts of worse 
butters are salted and potted, or barrel'd down, for they both will taste 
stronger than the finest first made butter, and be of a whiter colour, 
unless artificially coloured. However, if they are thus bad, the poor 
persons who are necessitated to labour hard for maintaining their 
families, are obliged sometimes to run into debt at a chandler's shop for 
bread, butter, cheese, and other necessaries, and thus forced to pay for 
bad butter at the best price, altho' the shopkeeper gives perhaps but 
little more than half what the prime butter costs.--A knowing woman being 
at Dunstable market, and cheapening some pounds weight of fresh butter, 
the woman seller ask'd the best price for it, but the woman buyer gave her 
to understand she knew it was bad butter, by saying the mice had run over 
it; as much as to say, Mrs. bad housewife let the cream stand so long on 
the milk before it was skimmed, that it was got thick enough for a mouse 
to run over it, and therefore made a bad butter.

   Author's Method of salting down or potting Butter for his Family Uses.--
To do this, my dairy-maid in the first place makes a brine strong enough 
to bear an egg, that it may be in a readiness to mix amongst fresh butter, 
for preserving it sweet and sound some time; when she has churn'd her 
butter, she beats some salt very fine, and salts it a little as they 
commonly do fresh butter; this done, she puts some brine at the bottom of 
a glazed pot, and on that a layer of butter, which she kneads close down, 
and by the impression of her knuckles she leaves hollow places sufficient 
to hold some brine; then she begins a second layer of butter, kneads it as 
before, and adds more brine: Thus she carries on this work of potting 
butter till the pot is near full, and when she has covered the whole with 
brine, enough to swim on the top of the butter, and the pot is well 
cover'd, the work is finished.

   What an ancient Author writes of potting and barrelling Butter.--You 
shall by no means (says he) as in fresh butter, wash the butter-milk out 
with water, but only work it clear out with your hands, for water will 
make the butter rusty; this done, you shall open the butter, and salt it 
thoroughly, beating it in with your hand till it be generally dispersed 
through the whole butter; then take clean earthen pots, exceedingly well 
glazed, lest the brine should leak through the same, and cast salt into 
the bottom of it; then lay in your butter, and press it hard down within 
the same, and when your pot is flled, then cover the top thereof with 
salt, so as no butter be seen; then closing up the pot, let it stand where 
it may be cold and safe; but if your dairy be so little that you cannot at 
first fll up the pot, you shall then (when you have potted up so much as 
you have) cover it all over with salt, and pot the next quantity upon it, 
till the pot is full. Now there be housewives (says he) whose dairies 
being great, can by no means conveniently have their butter contained in 
pots, as in Holland, Suffolk, Norfolk, and such like; and therefore are 
forced to take barrels very safe and well made, and after they have salted 
the butter well, they fll their barrels therewith. Then they take a small 
clean stick, and therewith make divers holes down through the butter, even 
to the bottom of the barrel, and then make a strong brine of water and 
salt which will bear an egg, and after it is boiled well, skim'd and 
cooled, they pour it upon the top of the butter, till it swim above the 
same, and so let it settle. Some (says he) use to boil in this brine a 
branch or two of rosemary, and it is not amiss, but pleasant and 
wholesome. This ancient author says further, that you may at any time 
betwixt May and September pot up butter, observing to do it in the coolest 
time of the morning; yet (says he) the most principal season of all is in 
the month of May only, for then the air is most temperate, and the butter 
will take salt the best, and be the least subject to rusting.

   Remarks on the aforesaid ancient Author's potting of Butter.--This 
author, I think, is a little too slight in his advice, by saying it is 
enough only to beat out the butter-milk with the hands; for butter that is 
to be potted down, is by some put and confined in a press under weight, 
the better to drain out the butter-milk, but where this conveniency is 
wanted, hand-beating may do; next it is to be salted down in a pot or 
barrel, by laying it two or three inches thick, and strewing salt between 
every layer of butter; at last to salt or brine as he directs. And whether 
it be butter made in the cold or hot dairy, it may be potted or barrel'd 
to a good purpose, provided the butter-milk is entirely got out, salted 
rightly, and done in a cool air; for if butter is barrel'd in very hot 
weather, it will be apt to grow rank too soon: Therefore in such weather, 
where they have not a cellar or other good conveniencies, it is hazardous 
work; and so tender are some on this account, who are not under a 
necessity of potting or barrelling butter in the summer-time, that they 
forbear doing it till the latter end of August, when the nights are pretty 
long and cool.--Again, when the salt part of butter decays, so as to cause 
it to grow bad, let it be taken under care time enough. The cure is, to 
wash it well in more than one water, then to salt and pot it down again; 
for this may recover it, and bring it to be good salt butter a second 
time.--So likewise may good salt butter be made to become good fresh 
butter, as many do to their great profit; else the London pastry-cooks, as 
well as some others, would be at a great charge indeed, to buy always 
fresh butter in winter-time, when butter is at the dearest. Therefore it 
is the practice in some dairies, where they churn cream enough to make six 
pounds of butter, to cut three pounds of salt butter into thin slices, and 
just as the new butter is coming, to put them into the churn, and churn 
away till the whole parcel of butter is come. And if the work is rightly 
carried on, both the salt butter and the fresh, being thus churned into a 
mixture, will all become good fresh butter; but take care you do not put 
the salt butter in too soon, for if you do, neither the fresh nor that 
will come. You may preserve fresh butter the longer, by keeping it in 
brine.

   Butter-milk Porridge.--Butter-milk, when mixt with oatmeal, may be made 
into good porridge.

   Butter-milk Hasty-pudding.--In the Vale of Aylesbury, where are many 
large dairies, the poor people go from house to house to beg butter-milk, 
and some, when they have it on the fire ready to boil, will stir wheat or 
barley flower into it, to make hasty-pudding of it, and thus live several 
days on the same sort of management.

   Butter-milk with Apples and Toast.--Some coddle, and others roast 
apples till they are soft, and put them into butter-milk, and then boil 
them a little. This will make it thick like custard, and when a toast is 
made and sop'd in it, it is good eating, especially in winter-time, when 
the butter-milk is sweet; but the same mess may be had in the spring and 
summer-time, where they make butter from the hot dairy, if they have 
apples, because here the butter-milk is always sweet. My butter-milk I 
frequently give away to my indigent neighbours, as a very acceptable 
relief to their families. Others make a toast as for ale, and put it (cut 
in bits) into butter-milk, then roast some apples, and mash them into it 
with sugar, and think it an excellent repast.

   Butter-milk Pancakes and Puddings.--Sweet butter-milk makes better 
pancakes and puddings than skim-milk.

   Butter-milk Curds.--The whey of cheese must be put over the fire, and 
heated till it rises ready for boiling; at this juncture of time, some 
butter-milk must be put into it, and stir'd by degrees, as when posset is 
made. This will cause curds to arise. Then take the pot from off the fire, 
and skim off the curds from the whey for eating them. Now the way our 
country people eat them is, by crumbling bread, and mixing it with a 
little sugar, or without sugar; when they say, this is a dish for a king. 
Others may eat these curds with cream and sugar, or with wine, or with 
beer and ale, but be sure you do not stir in your butter-milk over the 
fire if it smoaks, for if you do, it will have an unsufferable taste. The 
whey that is left may serve for a cooling wholesome drink. But although I 
have hitherto wrote on butter-milk for raising curds, yet where butter-
milk is too sour for this purpose, or is not to be had, some will make use 
of cold water, by putting it in along the sides of the kettle or pot by 
degrees, as soon as the whey rises for raising curds; and when they are 
skimmed off, and let to stand till the whey is drained from them, they are 
fit to be eat.--Whey if good has so much of a milk quality in it, that if 
it is boiled, it will, without any assistance of butter-milk or water, 
throw up a skim or cream; therefore some instead of letting their whey lie 
cold in pans to skim it once in twenty-four hours, will get a cream from 
it by boiling it, in order to make a butter of such cream.--A second way 
to make butter-milk curds, is to boil new milk, and while it is boiling 
hot, pour it upon cold buttermilk, which cover, and let stand till curd 
rises; then take out the curd, and let it stand on a fine straining sieve, 
or in a linen cloth, till no more whey drops out; then beat the curd with 
a spoon till it is finely broken, and sweeten it with cream to your palate.

   Of the Repository or Dairy-Room.--The sweetest butter is certainty best 
made in the month of May, when all sorts of grasses, whether of the 
English or foreign kind, are in their infant or purest growth; yet this is 
not the time for potting down butter, because the weather at this time of 
year increases so much in heat, as would cause it to grow rank and spoil 
before the winter. Now a cellar or any low room, that lies below or even 
with the surface of the earth, is situated to a northern aspect, and has a 
brick or stone floor, must be of great service towards carrying on a 
dairy; for by this valuable conveniency, milk and cream will keep longer 
sweet than if it stands in a warmer place. I have known much stress laid 
upon this, where a number of cows have been kept, that though a dairy has 
made great part of a large rent for many years, yet a tenant has suffered 
to such a degree for want of a very cool cellar or room, that he never 
left soliciting his landlord till he had one made to his mind; for what 
damage must it be to those many farmers who keep ten, twenty, or thirty 
milch cows, and cannot sell their butter oftener than once or twice at 
most in a week, by reason the London carrier goes but once or twice a week 
at most to London from Oxfordshire, Buckinghamshire, Bedfordshire, &c. 
Wherefore when milk is kept in a cellar or other cool place, it will not 
only keep longer sweet, but it causes it to throw up the greater quantity 
of cream, that will produce a butter in such perfection as to sell for 
more money than that made from a dairy where this conveniency is wanting, 
as the case is with many farmers, in vales especially; because here the 
springs are generally so nigh the surface of the earth, that unless the 
bricklayer makes use of tarrass, and he is a very good workman, he cannot 
make a cellar to keep out water. Yet I have known this deficiency in a 
great measure supplied, by digging only two or three foot into the ground, 
and by laying it with a brick floor, and building this dairy-room at the 
north side of the farm-house.

   What an ancient Author writes of keeping Cream.--He says that with a 
shallow thin wooden dish you take in the evening the cream from off that 
milk which was milk'd in the morning, and skim the evening's milk 
accordingly. The cream so taken off, you shall (says he) put into a sweet 
well leaded earthen pot (he means a glazed earthen pot) close cover'd, and 
set it in a cool place; and this cream so gather'd you shall not keep 
above two days in summer, and not above four in the winter, if you will 
have the sweetest and best butter, and that your dairy contain five kine 
or more; but how many or few soever you keep, you shall not by any means 
preserve your cream above three days in summer, and not above six in 
winter.

   What an ancient Author writes of churning Butter in an upright Churn.--
This author, who wrote on butter and many other subjects in husbandry 
about one hundred and twenty years ago, says thus:--Take your cream, and 
thorough a strong and clean cloth strain it into the churn, and then 
covering the churn close, and setting it in a place fit for the action in 
which you are employed (as in summer, in the coolest place of your dairy, 
and exceeding early in the morning, or very late in the evening, and in 
the winter in the warmest place of your dairy, and in the most temperate 
hours, as about noon or a little before or after) churn it with swift 
strokes, marking the noise of the same, which will be solid, heavy, and 
intire, untill you hear it alter, and the sound is light, sharp, and more 
spirity, and then you shall say that your butter breaks, which being 
perceived both by this sound, the lightness of the churn-staff, and the 
sparks and drops which will appear yellow about the lip of the churn, 
cleanse with your hand both the lid and inward sides of the churn, and 
having put all together, you shall cover the churn again, and then with 
easy strokes round, and not to the bottom, gather the butter together into 
one entire heap, lump, or body. Now forasmuch (says he) as there be many 
mischiefs and inconveniencies, which may happen to butter in the churning, 
because it is a body of much tenderness, and neither will endure much heat 
nor much cold (for if it be overheated it will look white, crumble, and be 
bitter in taste, and if it be over cold, it will not come at all, but make 
you waste much labour in vain) which faults to help, if you churn your 
butter in the heat of the summer, it shall not be amiss, if during the 
time of your churning you place your churn in a pail of cold water as deep 
as your cream riseth in the churn, and in the churning thereof let your 
strokes go slow, and be sure that your churn be cold when you put in your 
cream; but if you churn it in the coldest time of winter, you shall then 
put in your cream before the churn be cold, after it hath been scalded, 
and you shall place it within the air of the fire, and churn it with as 
swift strokes, and as fast as may be, for the much labouring thereof will 
keep it in a continual warmth; and thus you shall have your butter good, 
sweet, and according to your wish. After your butter is gathered well 
together in your churn, you shall open it, and with both your hands gather 
it well together, and take it from the buttermilk, and put it into a very 
clean bowl of wood that has water in it, and therein work the butter with 
your hand, turning and tossing it to and fro, till you have by that labour 
beaten and wash'd out all the butter-milk, and brought the butter to a 
firm substance of itself without any other moisture; which done, you shall 
take the butter from the water, and with the point of a knife scotch and 
slash the butter over and over every way as thick as is possible, leaving 
no part through which your knife must not pass; for this will cleanse and 
fetch out the smallest hair or mote, or rag of a strainer, or any other 
thing, which by casual means may happen to fall into it. After this you 
shall spread the butter in a bowl thin, and take so much salt as you shall 
think convenient, which must by no means be much for sweet butter, and 
sprinkle it thereupon; then with your hands work the butter and the salt 
exceedingly well together, and make it up either into dishes, pounds, or 
half pounds, at your pleasure.

   Remarks on this ancient Author's Account of churning Butter.--As there 
was no barrel churn invented in his days, he was confined to write only on 
the upright churn, and this he does well on some accounts, but he takes no 
notice of beating the salt fine before it is mix'd with the butter, though 
it is a material article; nor that working fresh butter (by way of 
kneading it) with a very strong brine instead of salt improves it; nor 
that too long an intermission in churning is of ill consequence to the 
work, because this will make the churning (as we call it) to go backwards, 
and very hard to be renewed, if at all, especially in winter weather; and 
yet this is a fault that some ignorant or slothful dairy maids are guilty 
of, that do not consider that an intermission, though but while one can 
tell fifty, is enough to divide the thick from the thin part of the cream, 
and prevent the butter coming in due time.

   The Practice of a Vale Dairy Farmer, that generally milk'd thirty 
Cows.--This man kept thirty cows generally under milk, and for making the 
most profit of his dairy, he furnished his cellar with such a number of 
square leads, that were placed almost all round it, for receiving the milk 
as it was brought from the cows; for these he prefer'd before tubs, or 
earthen or brass pans, because they keep milk coolest in summer, and not 
amiss in winter, are very smooth, and presently and easily clean'd. By 
this and other ways of his ingenious and careful management, he seldom 
failed of making thirty dozen pounds of delicate sweet butter every week 
during most of the summer, by churning it every third day, but in winter 
only once a week; and because earthen pans or pots are liable to be 
crack'd and broke in their removal, and too small for holding much milk, 
he always kept it in the leads, which answer'd his purpose; and for 
keeping his cream sweet he boiled some to put to the raw cream, which he 
duly shifted into fresh leads, and thus preserved it in good order.

   The Nature and Conveniency of Chiltern Lands for sowing them with 
foreign Grass Seeds, &c. for carrying on a Dairy.--As I have before wrote 
of a Vale dairy, I come now to write on a Chiltern dairy. According to the 
common acceptation of the word Chiltern in Hertfordshire, we understand it 
to signify a hilly inclosed country, consisting of various sorts of 
earths, which although they are not of so fertile a nature as Vale grounds 
generally are, yet they give us a far greater opportunity of putting them 
to different uses than what Vale farmers can theirs; because Vale lands 
commonly lie in open felds, and so in low and wet, that they are forced to 
plow them all one way, for raising and keeping them up dry in high ridges, 
which renders them incapable for the most part of being improved by sowing 
them with clover, trefoil, saintfoin, raygrass, lucern, turneps, or rapes. 
It is true, that their earth is of a blacker richer nature than Chiltern 
lands are, and therefore the natural grass is certainly of the best sort 
for making butter and cheese; but then as our felds are most of them 
inclosed, and our land lies more dry, we can plow them long-ways and cross-
ways, and sow them with clover, trefoil, saintfoin, raygrass, lucern, 
turneps, or rapes, according to our conveniency, not only for enriching 
our grounds by feeding them with cattle, but also for making butter and 
cheese with the feed of several of them.


Of a Cheese Dairy.

A Cheshire Maid's Account of her making Cheese, as she gave it me in 
Hertfordshire on the 25th of November, 1746.--She says, that the milk of 
thirty of their cows makes a cheese of fifty pounds weight every day, and 
for well doing it, there must be three persons employed; they heat the 
night's milk, and put it to the morning's milk, till both are warm as it 
comes from the cow; then they put two or three spoonfuls of rennet into 
it, and stir and mix it well together, and in one hour's time, or two at 
most, the curd will come fit to be broke. Now their way of breaking it 
(she says) is over a tub, for the whey to run into it, and when the whey 
is thus discharged into one tub, they put the curd into another, for two 
or three persons to break it small; this done, they salt it, and work it 
into the form of a cheese, and in working it, they press all the whey they 
can out, then they put the curd into a cloth, and bind it about with broad 
flletting, and lay it in a press that has a great stone on it for lying 
here two hours, at the end of which they take it out, and shift it into a 
fresh dry cloth, which they put again into the cheese-press, for its lying 
here eight hours; then they turn the cheese in the same cloth, and let it 
lie in the press twelve hours, at the end of which they take it out and 
shift the cheese into a finer cloth and lighter press, and thus the 
pressing work is finished. After it is taken out, they scrape the cheese, 
rub it all over with brine, and then salt it; next they melt fresh butter, 
and pour it all over the cheese, and then lay it on a rack not far from a 
fire, and with giving the cheese timely turnings, the whole work is 
finished.--She also told me, that their cheese factors seldom buy any 
Cheshire cheese under a year old. And why they cannot make such good 
cheese out of Cheshire, is chiefly because their land is of a particular 
rich nature, some by the River Weaver (she says) letting for five pounds 
an acre, though a reddish sort of land; and here they are so nice, as not 
to make cheese till the fifth meal is taken from a new calved cow.

   A Way that some take in Cheshire to make large Cheeses with a few 
Cows.--She says they press the curd once or twice to clear it from its 
whey, then they cut it into thin slices and throw them into water; next 
day they break them short, by tearing them like dough into bits, and work 
and salt them well into one mass; this being done, they put this salted 
curd in the middle of new prepared curd which incloses it, then they bind 
it up in a cloth, and press and turn it several times as in the last way; 
a method practised by only those that have not cows enough to make a large 
cheese at once, for they that have, refuse it.

   The Somersetshire Dairy-maid's Way of making their common Cheese.--This 
country contains various sorts of lands and situations; it has marsh 
lands, dry stony lands, short earths, and stiff earths, hills and dales, 
grasing and plow'd grounds. About the latter end of April they begin to 
make their cheese, which for the greatest part are of the thin sort, like 
those of Warwickshire and Leicestershire. Here they first squeeze their 
curd in the press a quarter or half an hour, then they take it out, break 
it as small as possible, and salt it; next they work it into the form of a 
cheese, put it into a cloth and press it again, squeezing it very gently 
at first, and follow the pressing of it a day together; in which space of 
time, they give the cheese several turnings, shifting it into a cloth 
wetted in cold water each time, in order as they say to give it a thin 
rind: At last they turn it in a fine dry cloth, to cause the rind to 
appear the better.

   A further Account from the same Somersetshire Dairy-maid, how they make 
their Cheese from the Feed of marsh Grounds.--- Marsh grounds generally 
produce the longest and rankest of grass, wherefore it puts the dairy-man 
on ways and means to take off, or to lessen any disagreeable taste that 
such grass may cause the cheese to retain.--A farmer here, that keeps 
forty cows, works two cheese-presses, when he that keeps thirty or less, 
works but one. After a cheese has been once pressed, they throw it cloth 
and all into scalding water, and there let it lie an hour if it is of the 
thinner sort, but a thicker one they let lie longer; then they take it 
out, and press it leisurely again. It is true, that this way is apt to 
extract and run out some of the fat part of the cheese curd, but then it 
gives the cheese these two good qualities, that it will eat the milder, 
and keep the longer sound.

   The Somersetshire Dairy-maid's Way to make Cream Cheese.--She says, 
that she skims off the cream of last night's milk the next morning, and 
puts it into the morning's milk as soon as it is got from the cow; with 
this they mix a spoonful of rennet, and when the curd is come, they put it 
into a shallow wooden vat or mould, and with a wooden cover over it they 
press it by the hand. After this they put it into a cloth, and press it 
very tenderly, and turn it several times in one day; then they salt its 
outsides, and press it lightly again; at last, they lay it in nettles, 
rushes, or grass, to ripen, shifting it every now and then.

   The Somersetshire Dairy-maid's Way to make Cheese from the Feed of 
Clover.--It is certainly such a difficult thing to make good cheese from 
the feed of clover-grass, that very few attempt it. If sheep feed with 
cows in a clover field, their pissing on this grass will cause the cheese 
to hove on the shelf; and if cows feed alone on it, especially when the 
clover is in high growth, it will hove and swell the cheese, and give it a 
rank taste. Now to prevent these ill qualities in a great measure, there 
are two ways of doing it; one is, by salting the cheese curd soundly; the 
other is to let it lie in a good quantity of scalding water or whey half 
an hour in the cheese cloth, at the end of which time to put it into the 
press, and press and turn it as another cheese is usually done. She says 
the salt may fail answering this end, but the scalding will not. She 
further says, that for making their cheese like Gloucestershire cheese, 
they put the curd, after it is once press'd, into hot, but not scalding 
water; and that when the lambs have been taken from the ewes, she has 
milk'd them, and put their milk amongst the cows milk, and made cheese of 
it.

   Gloucestershire Cheese.--This Somersetshire dairy-maid tells me that 
Gloucestershire cheese is made with only one meal's milk as it comes hot 
from the cows, where they keep a sufficient number of them to do it, and 
when the rennet has brought the curd enough, they take it off with a dish, 
and directly put it into the wooden vat, or mould, and here press out the 
whey without a cloth; this done, they take out the cheese curd and put it 
into a cloth, and press it again and again, shifting the cloth two or 
three times between the pressings, and salt the cheese only on all its 
outsides.

   Shropshire Way of making Cheese.--I am told they make their cheese curd 
into balls with salt, and keep them a day or two, then break them 
extreamly fine into new curd, else it will cause the cheese to crumble too 
much: But if the work is perform'd rightly, they say it makes good cheese.

   To make a compound Cheese.--Take the cream you skim'd off last night, 
and put it to the morning's milk in a tub. Then make some water scalding 
hot, and pour it into the milk and cream, which stir and mix till all is 
only lukewarm, and put rennet to it. This done, let it stand cover'd with 
a cloth about half an hour, and if the curd does not come enough in that 
time, you may add more rennet, then with a dish in your hand break and 
mash the curd, and press it with your hand down to the bottom of the tub. 
After this, with a thin skimming dish, you are to take the whey from the 
curd, and directly break the curd small, and squeeze it into your wooden 
vat till it is quite full; then lay upon the top of your curd your round 
cheese-board, and upon that a weight for making the whey drop out of it, 
and when it has done dropping, take a cheese-cloth, and having wetted it 
in cold water, lay it on your cheese-board, and turn the cheese upon it. 
Then lay the cloth and cheese in the vat, and press it in the common 
cheese-press. And after it has been there half an hour, take it out, turn 
the cheese into a dry cloth, and put it into the press again. Thus you may 
turn it into dry cloths five or six times the first day, and then let it 
lie press'd twelve or more hours, and at last turn it into a dry vat 
without any cloth at all. When the cheese is so far made, rub it all over 
with salt, and next day do the same; and for two or three days following 
turn it in brine; after this rub it and lay it on a shelf to dry, and 
continue rubbing it every day with a dry clean cloth, till it is got 
thoroughly dry and fit to be laid in a cheese-loft: But observe that you 
dry it hastily in the beginning, and leisurely afterwards. Such a cheese, 
if rightly made, and a due age given it, will be as good one as any man 
need to eat.

   To make soft or what they call Cream Cheese.--As to the second 
appellation, it is for the most part a wrong one, because these cheeses 
are seldom made with any other than the new milk as it comes from the cow, 
and while it is thus warm, rennet is put into it for turning the milk into 
curd, which when sufficiently come, it must be taken out with a skimming-
dish (for the hand must touch it but as little as possible throughout all 
the operation) and put into a hair sieve, to give the whey an opportunity 
to drain from it. Next, the curd must be put into a wooden vat or mould 
with the skimming-dish, for a gentle pressure of it, for if the hand was 
employed to do this, it would give the cheese a disagreeable toughness. 
Then press it for about three hours, turning it once in the time, and 
salting it a little. Now in great dairies they make these soft early 
cheeses twice a day with each meal's milk, and press four or five, or six 
at a time, by putting each cheese in a cloth one upon another, and thus 
pressing them all together. And after each cheese has been press'd, they 
lay them on boards, and turn them twice a day for three or four days 
together, then lay some rushes on each cheese, and turn them on it twice a 
day till they get pretty dry, and when they are so, three or four or more 
cheeses may be laid over one another with rushes between them, to keep 
them hollow, and dry them the faster. Which management from the press to 
the buyer will take ten or fourteen days time. And when in April they 
begin to make these soft thin cheeses, or as some call them cream cheeses, 
some will have a fire of embers made from wood or otherwise in the middle 
of the room, on purpose to forward the drying of these cheeses, that they 
may meet with the better market; tho' they are not so good as those made 
in the month of May or later, because in April they are obliged to help 
out the short bite of grass with some dry meat to feed their cows with. 
Some for making the most profit in a great cheese dairy will take off a 
cream from thin milk to mix with whey cream, to make the better whey-
butter, and put the skim milk to new milk for making soft thin cheeses, 
which in a near county to Hertfordshire they call dozen cheeses, because 
they sell them by the dozen for four shillings or four shillings and 
sixpence a dozen; and for giving them a little gloss, they use red-
saunders, which gives them a brightish colour, for though they are 
naturally pale, yet a shade of red adds a small lustre to them. It is also 
observable, that these thin soft cheeses have most of them marks of the 
green rushes on their rind, which are accounted for this use better than 
nettles or grass, because these have hardish round stalks, that cause the 
cheeses to lie hollower to dry than the leaves of nettles or grass will 
admit of; besides which, it is a dairy maxim, that unless cheese is 
press'd well, it won't dry well. And although I have mentioned this way of 
making soft thin cheese with only new milk, and with new milk and skim 
milk, yet better cheese is made by some, for I have heard it affrmed that 
a gentlewoman, who kept but ten cows, made sixty cheeses in a season, 
weighing twenty pounds each, so rich that she sold them for one shilling 
per pound.

   To make Slipcoat Cheese.--Proportion your cheese curds to your moulds 
and vats, and to six quarts of milk (or better stroakings) put a pint of 
spring water. If the weather is hot, let the water be cold, and before you 
put it into the stroakings, let them stand a while to cool after they are 
milked, then stir in the water with a little salt, which let stand a 
little while, then put in two spoonfuls of rennet and stir all well 
together, to stand cover'd with a linen cloth. When the curd is become 
like a thick jelly, with a skimming-dish lay it gently into the moulds, 
and as it sinks down fll on more curd till all be in, which will require 
three or four hours time; then lay a fine clean cloth into another mould 
of the same size, and turn it into it, and then turn the skirts of the 
cloth over it, and lay upon that a thin board, and upon that as much 
weight as with the board may make two pounds or thereabouts, and about 
half an hour after lay another clean cloth into the other mould, and turn 
the cheese into that; then lay upon the board as much as will make it six 
or seven pounds weight, and thus continue turning it till night; then take 
away the weight, and lay it no more on it; this done, beat some salt very 
fine, and sprinkle the cheese all over with it as slightly as you can; 
next morning turn it into another dry cloth, and let it lie out of the 
mould upon a plain board, and change it as often as it wets the cloth, 
which must be three or four times a day. When it is so dry, that it wets 
the cloth no more, lay it upon a bed of green rushes, and lay a row of 
them upon it; but be sure to pick the bennet grass clean from them, and 
lay them even all one way. If you cannot get good rushes, take nettles or 
grass. If the weather is cold, cover them with a linen and woollen cloth. 
In case you cannot get stroakings, take five quarts of new milk and one of 
cream. If the weather is cold, heat the water that you put to the 
stroakings. Turn the cheese every day, and put to it fresh of whatsoever 
you keep it in. They are usually ripe in ten days.

   A second Way of making Slipcoat Cheese.--To two quarts of cream, add 
six quarts of milk directly from the cow, mingle these together and let 
them stand till they are cold; then pour three pints of boiling water to 
it, which stir in, and let all stand till they are very near cold; then 
put to it a moderate quantity of rennet made with fair water (not whey, or 
any other thing than water, for this is an important point) and let stand 
till it come; have a care not to break the curds, nor even to touch them 
with your hands, but only with a skimming-dish. In due time lade the curds 
with the dish into a thin fine napkin, held up between two persons, that 
the whey may run from them through it, while they roll it about, that the 
curds may dry without breaking. When the whey is well drained out, put the 
curds as whole as you can into the cheese vat upon a napkin. Change the 
napkin, and turn the cheese every half hour for ten times, till it wets 
the napkin no more. Then press it with half a pound weight for two or 
three hours; add half a pound more for as long a time, and another half 
pound for as long; and lastly another half pound, which is two pounds in 
all, a weight that never must be exceeded. The next day, when about four 
and twenty hours are past in all, salt your cheese a little, and turn it 
three or four times a day, keeping it in a cotton cloth, which will make 
it mellow and sweet, and preserve it a smooth coat, ready for eating, in 
about twelve days time. Some lay it to ripen in dock-leaves, but they are 
apt to give and mould the cheese, others in flat boxes of wood, and turn 
them three or four times a day, but a cotton cloth is best. This quantity 
of milk and cream is for a round large cheese, a good finger's breadth 
thick. Long grass ripeneth them well and sucketh out the moisture. Rushes 
are good also; they are hot, but dry not the moisture so well.

   A third Way of making Slipcoat Cheese.--Take 3 quarts of stroakings, 
and as they come from the cow, put a skimming-dish of spring water with 
two spoonfuls of rennet to them, and let it stand cover'd till it come 
hard. Take it up by degrees, but break it not. When you have laid all in 
the vat, work a fine cloth in about its sides with the back of a knife, 
then lay a board on it for half an hour, at the end of which set a half 
pound stone on it, and let it stand two hours; then turn it on that board, 
and let the cloth be under and over it, and put it into the vat again. Now 
lay a pound and half weight on it. Two hours after turn it again on a dry 
cloth, and salt it a little; then set on it two pounds weight, and let it 
stand till next morning, when you are to turn it out of the cheese vat on 
a dry board, and keep it turning on dry boards three days. If it spreads 
too much, set it up with wedges. When it begins to stiffen, lay green 
grass or rushes upon it; and when stiff enough, lay rushes over and under 
it. If this cheese is rightly made and the weather dry, it will be ready 
in eight days; but in case it does not dry well, lay it on a linen cloth 
and woollen upon it, to hasten its ripening.

   A short Way to make a Cream Cheese.--Milk seven quarts from the cow, 
and as soon as it is got, mix it with a pint of cream and a spoonful of 
rennet. Cover it in a bowl or bucket, and when the curd is come enough, 
lay a cloth all over a cheese vat. Take the curd out with a skimming-dish, 
and put it on the cloth till the vat is full; then turn the cloth over the 
cheese, and as the curd sinks lay more on till there be enough. When 
thoroughly drained of the whey, turn the cheese in a fresh dry cloth in 
the vat, and lay a pound weight on it; at night turn it on another dry 
cloth, and salt it on the morrow morning but very little; then lay it on 
rushes or nettles, and cover with the same, and turn it twice a day. This 
cheese will be eatable in twelve days time or sooner. To improve this 
cheese, stamp a handful or two of marigold flowers, and add some of the 
juice to the rennet.

   Fresh Cheese.--Sweeten a quart or three pints of cream well with sugar, 
and boil it, and while it is boiling, put in some damask rose-water; keep 
it stirring to prevent its burning to the pot, and when it is thicken'd 
enough and turned, take it off the fire, and wash the canvas strainer and 
cheese-vat with rose-water, and roll it to and fro in the strainer, to 
drain the whey from the curd; take up the curds with a spoon, and put them 
into the vat, let it stand till it is cold, and then put it into a dish 
with some of the whey for eating.

   Rich fresh Cheese.--To 3 pints of new milk (or better stroakings) while 
it is warm from the cow, put half a spoonful of rennet for turning it to 
curds and whey; then beat a quarter of a pound of blanch'd almonds with 
two or three spoonfuls of cream and one spoonful of rose-water. Shape the 
curd in a cheese vat or pan, and eat it with cream and sugar; but lest 
such a fresh cheese prove too raw and cold for some stomachs, you may add 
some powder of cinnamon, mace or nutmeg, or all.

   Winter Cream Cheese.--Boil a quart of cream, and put it to a gallon of 
new milk; when all is milk-warm, put a spoonful of rennet to it, and cover 
it with a cloth till the curd is come enough; then with a skimming-dish 
lay it into a canvas straining cloth, to discharge it of its whey. This 
done, lay a board on it, and a two pound weight on that; and after the 
curd has been under this pressure for three or four hours, put a wet cloth 
in a mould or vat, and your curd in that, with six pounds weight on it. 
Here it must be turned into fresh wet cloths every three hours for the 
first day. Let it stand pressed all night, and next morning take out the 
cheese and salt it a little; then press it again, and turn it every three 
or four times in fresh dry cloths at every two hours end, and it is ready 
for laying on rushes or leaves of nettles in a dry place. Observe to lay 
the cheese every morning amongst a thick parcel of fresh nettles or 
rushes; and if the outsides of the cheese be moister than ordinary, apply 
dry cloths for the first or second time. With careful management, this 
cheese will be ready in twelve or fourteen days time for eating.

   To make a Cream Cheese in a Cabbage-Net.--This cream cheese has been 
made many times by a widow woman; and as she told me, she has sold them 
for a shilling a pound. To this purpose, she takes the cream off last 
night's milk, puts it into a pail the next morning, and then directly 
milks upon it her desired quantity, to which she puts a spoonful or two of 
rennet. When the curd is come enough, she squeezes the whey from it very 
softly with her hand; for if she squeezes it hard, much of the curds 
goodness will go off with the whey; then she salts the curd a little, and 
puts it into a cabbage-net. And in this manner she has had four or five at 
a time hung up in a dairy room, but took care now and then to wipe the 
outsides of the cheeses; and in about six weeks, or two months, they would 
be ready for eating as a most excellent sort. In this manner, she says, 
she has made marigold and sage cheese in chequer work. The chief reason 
for making this sort of cheese is, for its convenient drying, and the 
rarity of eating a cabbage-net cheese, which is about a foot long and 
three or four inches thick; but it must be carefully rubbed as it lies in 
the net, to keep off the black or blue mold. However, if such rubbing wont 
do, it must be taken out and rubbed.

   Welch Cheese.--When the small Brecknockshire sheep come into the rich 
Vale of Glamorganshire, they give much more milk than they do in that 
mountainous country, and then they milk them for making cheese. To this 
purpose some keep five or six score, which they always milk behind, and 
get about a pint from each sheep; and as their milk is of a very fat 
nature, they mix it with skim milk of cows; when a little is heated, they 
put in their rennet, and make cheese that is of a short tartish nature.

   Cream Curds.--Strain your whey, and set it on the fire, making a clear 
and gentle fire under the kettle. As the curds arise put in whey, and 
continue it till they are ready to be skimmed off; then take a skimmer and 
put them on the bottom of a hair sieve; let them drain till they are cold, 
then take them off and put them into a bason, and beat them with three or 
four spoonfuls of cream and sugar for eating.

   Of the Cheese or Rennet Bag, as wrote of by an ancient Author.--The 
cheese or rennet bag (says he) is the stomach bag of a young suckling 
calf, which never tasted other food than milk, where the curd lieth 
undigested. Of these bags (says he) you shall in the beginning of the year 
provide yourself good store, and first open the bag and pour out into a 
clean vessel the curd and thick substance thereof, but the rest (which is 
not curdled) you shall put away; then open the curd, and pick out of it 
all manner of motes, chiers of grass, or other filth got into the same; 
then wash the curd in several cold waters till it be as white and clean 
from all sorts of motes as is possible; then lay it on a cloth that the 
water may drain from it; which done, lay it in another dry vessel, take a 
handful or two of salt, and rub the curd therewith exceedingly; then take 
your bag and wash it also in divers cold waters till it be very clean, and 
then put the curd with a good deal of salt into the bag again, and salt 
the bag all over very well; then close up the bag, and lay it in a glazed 
earthen pot, to keep a full year before using: For (continues he) the 
hanging of rennet bags up in a chimney corner (as coarse housewives do) is 
a sluttish way, and very unwholesome. The spending of your rennet while it 
is new makes your cheese hove and prove hollow. Observe also, that if such 
rennet baggs are kept in pots in a dry room, well salted, they will keep 
good nine or ten months or more. When the rennet is wanted, boil a quart 
of the stronger brine, and when it is cold put it into the bag, which 
prick with many holes, and keep it in this brine and pot ready for use. 
The stronger the brine is made, the less rennet will serve. One spoonful 
of this brine will turn ten gallons of milk, is put into it while the milk 
is warm; but if too hot, it will produce a hard curd: So likewise if too 
much rennet is put to the milk, it will make the cheese full of holes and 
taste rank. If you have a large dairy, you may keep ten or twenty rennet 
bags in one large glazed earthen pot: And this is to be observed, that 
when cheese-time is over, the rennet bags, as they lie in the pot, should 
have salt sprinkled every now and then over them, else they will be apt to 
stink and spoil.

   A Buckinghamshire Dairy Woman's Account for using her Rennet Bags and 
Rennet.--This woman says, that she puts a handful of salt into two gallons 
of whey, and that after it has boiled so long, and so much curd has been 
skim'd off that no more will rise, she then boils the whey longer, with 
either some flowers of the white thorn, or its leaves, twigs or boughs, in 
order to give the rennet a pleasant taste, and preserve the cheese a long 
time sound. Now this whey must be drained from the thorn as fine as can be 
done, and when it is cold, take three rennet bags out of your brine pot, 
and steep them in this whey, till you think they have tinctured it enough 
with a rennet quality, which will be in a day or two's time, when you are 
to take them out and return them into the brine pot. Thus you have an 
excellent rennet made, that is kept in bottles well corked, in a cool 
place, will last a great while for your leisure uses.

   When Cheese is best made.--Cheese is best made in the months of May, 
June, and July, when grass is in most heart and the days are at a right 
length, for then the cheese have the best opportunity of drying; and when 
they have got dry, a right housewife will dip them in hot whey, scrub 
their outsides with a brush, and when dry again, will rub them over with 
whey or other butter, for giving the cheese a fine saleable yellow-
colour'd coat, but whey butter is full good enough for this purpose; which 
to come by, they set the grey whey at night and skim next morning, and so 
the white whey. The grey whey is that made by the rennet, the white by 
pressure of the curd. And when they have got enough of such whey cream, 
they churn it into a butter that cheats thousands of the ignorant people, 
who know not to distinguish between new milk butter, after butter, and 
whey butter; although the two last are not worth so much as the first by a 
penny or three half pence a pound.

   The Artifice of a Dairy-Maid to get rid of a slovenly Boy milking her 
Cows.--This maid I recommended to be dairy-maid to a gentleman's family in 
Essex, who wrote to me to send him one, as I live on the edge of Aylesbury 
Vale, where many clever ones are brought up: It was this maid servant that 
told me, she once lived with a master that kept about four or five cows 
for his family use, which she could well milk and manage herself, yet the 
gentleman her master would oblige her to let a slovenly boy servant always 
milk some of the cows for dispatch sake, contrary to the maid's and the 
boy's inclination; which put her upon inventing a stratagem, how to get 
rid of the boy. For this purpose, she bid him put a corking-pin through 
his hat, and as the master was wont now and then to see his cows milk'd, 
the boy in milking push'd the pin against the cow's side, and thus 
prevented her standing still. This induced the master to ask the maid, why 
the cow would not stand still? She told him, because she does not like the 
boy should milk her. Then said he milk them all yourself.

   The sluttishness of a Dairy-Maid, who milk'd her Cows with foul 
Fingers.--A man that lives about a mile distant from Gaddesden, and now 
keeps a publick house, said, that when he was a single man, he lived a 
servant with a dairy farmer, at Simson, near Water-Crawley in 
Buckinghamshire, where, seeing the maid servant milk a cow that had a very 
foul bag, occasion'd by her lying down in a nasty cow-house, she was so 
lazy, as not to be at the pains of first washing the cow's bag before 
milking, but milk'd with her fingers besmear'd with the dung of the cow to 
that degree, as alter'd the colour of the milk, which made such an 
impression on the mind of this man, that he declared to me he never since 
could eat milk, tho' this happened twenty years before. A case very 
different from the following one.

   How a Gentleman obliged his Boy or Man Servant to clean his Cow-house 
every Morning and Evening before his Cows were milked.--This gentleman, 
who lived in Cheshire, and whom I know as my benefactor, kept four or five 
cows wholly for his family uses; and was so remarkably neat in the 
management of one of his farms, which he kept in his own hands, that he 
was admired for it both by strangers and neighbours. One of his cleanly 
actions was, that he obliged his boy or man servant every morning and 
evening to clean his cowhouse before the maid milked, in order to free her 
from the danger of a foul milk by the cows dirty bags. The same good 
management is carefully put in practice in the great cow-houses near 
London, as well as in many little ones elsewhere; else what a sad 
condition must the many things be in that are made with milk. These cases 
may plainly shew the value of a cleanly skilful dairy-maid servant; and 
such a one I send to any gentleman or lady, that thinks fit to write me a 
proper order, and they may depend on having none but a true Vale-bred one, 
that understands the making of butter and cheese, &c. &c.

   The cleanly Kudnal Dairy-maid's Account how she preserves her Cream 
sweet all the Summer.--She says, that she boils her earthen glazed pots, 
and shifts the cream twice a day out of one into another; and after one 
pot has stood on the other to drain the cream, she wipes the remainder off 
with her fingers. And every time, if she goes ten times a day into the 
cellar, she stirs her cream to keep it from clotting and souring; which it 
generally does, if not served in this manner. She also says, that every 
now and then she flings water down the cellar to keep it cool, and where 
there is no well or current, she, to carry it off, mops it up.

   The Character of a certain sluttish Maid-servant.--This servant-maid, 
who lived with a very rich farmer in a parish about four miles from 
Gaddesden, whose family consisted only of the master, the maid-servant, 
the plowman, and the boy horse-keeper, would brew three bushels of malt at 
a time for only small-beer; yet, being a slut, besides an ignorant brewer, 
the beer was generally fox'd and ropy: And the wheat dough being over-
water'd in summer, the bread was commonly so ropy that it might be parted 
in strings, and mouldy; for she usually baked six or seven half-peck 
loaves at a time, to save her the trouble of often baking for her small 
family. Her pasties were made exceedingly large, with the same dough the 
bread was made of, and only a handful or two of chopt apples, rinds and 
all, in each pasty. Her bacon, which was their chief food, had no herbs 
nor roots boiled with it, because the master would not allow them, lest 
they should prove a sauce, and cause them to eat more of it than ordinary.

   Cheese-making by a Widow in the County of Bucks.--This widow carries on 
the farming business, and keeps six cows besides horses and sheep. Of her 
cows milk she makes butter and cheese, which are sometimes good and 
sometimes bad. To account for this, I have to observe, that her grass 
ground lies very low, and is subject to be overflow'd with water in long 
and great rains, that naturally produces a rank sort of sour twitch or 
couch grass, and this the more for its being now and then dunged; which 
occasions her cheese curd sometimes to become so very soft as to make hove 
cheese; that is to say, cheese full of eyes or little hollows, that eats 
unpleasantly rank. Now to prevent these ill effects, when she finds her 
curd thus very soft, after it has been pressed about an hour or two, she 
takes it out and breaks it over again as small as she can; then new makes 
it into a cheese the second time, and puts it into the press, where she 
lets it remain a day or a day and a night. I am also further to observe, 
That when she makes a thin cheese in dry weather, the milk is then most 
free of the hoving quality, and therefore she does not break, make, and 
press it twice; for as her thin cheese weighs but about seven or eight 
pounds, the whey is soon dry'd out of it, and therefore less subject to be 
damaged by it. But when she makes a thicker cheese (as she sometimes does) 
she generally breaks, makes, and presses it twice, the better to clear it 
of the whey and prevent its hoving.--This case plainly shews, that it is 
the nature of the grass in a great degree, that governs the quality of the 
cheese. I therefore take this opportunity to acquaint any gentleman, whose 
grass ground lies very low, and is subject to these inconveniencies, that 
it may be improved by more than one way: It may be done by drawing off the 
water through subterraneous drains, or by sowing certain natural grass-
seeds upon old grass ground, and throwing over it at the same time a 
particular compost of manure, that will certainly produce a most excellent 
sweet grass, and that a most excellent sweet butter and cheese. Which 
secret I am ready to communicate on a proper order.

   To make a scalded Cheese.--Put two quarts of cream to six gallons of 
new milk, then put rennet to it for winter cheese; let it stand till it 
comes even, then sink it as long as you can get any whey out; then put it 
into your vat, set it in the press, and let it stand half an hour: In this 
time turn it once. When you take it out of the press, set on the fire two 
gallons of the same whey; then put your cheese into a large bowl or 
bucket, and break the curd as small with your hand as you do for cheese-
cakes. When your whey is scalding hot, take off the scum; lay your 
strainer over the curd, and put in your whey: Take a slice and stir up 
your curd that it may scald all alike, putting as much whey as will cover 
it well; when it is cold, put in more hot whey, and stir it as before; 
then cover it with a linen and woollen cloth: Then set some new whey on 
the fire, into which put in your cheese vat, suter and cloth; and after 
three quarters of an hour take up the curd, and put it into the cheese 
vat, as fast as two persons can work it in: Then put it into the hot 
cloth, and set it into the press; after a while turn the cheese, and keep 
it in the press with turning till the next day; then take it out and salt 
it.

   To make toasted or melted Cheese eat savoury.--Cut pieces of quick, 
fat, rich, well-tasted Cheshire or other good cheese into a dish of thick 
beaten melted butter, that has served for asparagus, pease, boiled sallet, 
or gravy, and if you will, chop some of the asparagus among it, or slices 
of gammon of bacon, onions, or anchovies, and all these in a mixture melt 
upon a chaffing-dish of coals, with good stirring, to incorporate them. 
And when all are of an equal consistence, strew a little white pepper over 
it, and eat it with toasts or crusts of white bread. You may scorch it on 
the top with a hot fire-shovel.