and called a fillet. This fillet is bandaged
round the cheese with a linen binder about
three inches broad; then a cloth is thrown
over the top, and the whole is pushed under
the block of the press, which is screwed down
upon it. The Wednesday's cheeses are bigger
and moister, and some whey is still oozing
from the holes of the fillet. The Thursday's
cheeses are very soft and yellow, and only
beginning to have a rind. The whey runs
out with a touch of your thumb. The maid
reaches for a handful of long skewers from
the shelf. She stabs the cheese through and
through in all directions, and throws aside
the cloth in which it was wrapped, and which
is wringing wet. It is now wrapped in a
dry cloth, put, the other end up, into its
keeler, bound with a fillet like the others,
but with the difference that half-a-dozen of
the long skewers are stuck into the holes of
the fillet. Then the binder goes on, the
cloth is closed over the whole, and it is set
aside—not under the press to-day, but with a
weight upon it, a slate cover, which has a
wooden handle to lift it by. These newer
cheeses are more or less wet with whey: they
are seamed and marked with the creases of
the binders and cloths, and knobbed in a
rather pretty way with buttons answering to
the holes of the fillet. These marks are all
to be ironed out, before the cheeses get quite
dry, with a tailor's goose. The goose stands
on the stove in the middle of the room, beside
the flat-irons used to smooth the cloths and
binders. The ironing of cheeses strikes one
as a curious sort of laundry business.

Now for to-day's cheeses. In a trice
everything else is put away, the dressers wiped
down, and the coast made clear for the great
operation. I stand between fifty gallons of
thick custard (to all appearance) on the one
hand and fifty gallons on the other. A very
long, blunt knife is handed to the widow,
who this morning does the honours with her
own hands. She scores the curd in all directions,
calls for a spoon, and invites me to
taste the curd. It is very good indeed—to
one who has as yet had no breakfast, though
kindly invited to the widow's well-spread
table an hour ago. The breaker is next
handed. The breaker is like a round gridiron,
delicately made of thick wire, and fastened
to the end of a slender broomstick. With a
graceful and slow motion, Mrs. S. plunges in
the breaker, and works it gently up and
down, and hither and thither, searching
every part of the great tub, that no lump of
curd may remain unbroken. When she turns
—in ten minutes or so—to the second tub,
the curd of the first all sinks to the bottom.
Then comes the dairymaid, and fishes and
rakes among the whey with a bowl till she
brings the greater part of the curd to her
side of the tub. Then she throws aside the
bowl; and, while she retains the mass with
one arm, she sweeps the whey with the other
for all the curd that is yet abroad. There
seems to be such a quantity that one can
hardly believe that it all goes to make
one cheese. Some of the cheeses, however,
weigh one hundred weight, or even more,
while those made in winter dwindle to sixty
pounds or less.

Two clean white baskets, like round washing
baskets, only slighter, are ready on the
dresser. A cloth being put into one of these as
a lining, the curd is heaped into it when the
last morsel that can be caught is fished out.
The basket is put into a tub to drain, and the
whey is left where it is to send up cream for
tomorrow's skimming and churning. In two or
three hours the curd will be dry enough for the
final making into cheese. It is broken up by
hand as fine as possible and salted. The salt
is worked in very thoroughly. Mrs. S. can
only say she salts it to her taste. The head
dairymaid thinks that she puts about two
pounds of salt to the largest of their cheeses.
The salting done, the cheese is fit for the
treatment described in the case of the
Thursday's production; and it will come out
tomorrow morning oozing whey through the
holes of the fillet and wherever pressed; and
it will be stabbed and impaled with those
long skewers like its predecessor of yesterday.
Meantime, the main business of the
day is done. If the girls are skilful and
diligent, they can get everything out of the
way before dinner, at half-past twelve. There
is plenty of hot water in the kitchen copper,
which holds one hundred gallons. The
keelers are scoured, the utensils all scalded,
the cloths and binders washed, and every
place wiped and swept and made tidy before
dinner. There is no reason why the girls
should not sit down to their sewing, or their
own employments of any sort, till the cows
come home for the evening milking. Some
awkward ones do not get through their work
till four in the afternoon; but if they get
tired it is nobody's fault but their own. At
nine everybody is off to bed.

The worst thing about the employment is
that it cannot stop on Sundays, except in
establishments large enough to have a double
set of apparatus, and great command of labour.
A landowner in the district I am writing of,
offered, some time since, a prize for the best
cheese, deferred on account of Sunday; and
it is found that the milk may be set on
Saturday night, and treated on Monday
morning, without injury; and the servants
do not complain of the Monday's hard
work, as the price of the free Sunday. But
it is a serious matter that there must be
duplicates of those huge tubs, and of everything
else that is used, including double space
to move about in. Remembering that the
work may always be over soon after twelve
at noon, I inquired whether the girls could not
set to it two hours earlier ou Sundays, so as
to be in time for church—taking rest in the
afternoon. But there is a strange obstacle to
that plan. In Wales, and on the borders,