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gilt-edged in every way, but if it contains no salt, an insufficient quantity of it, or that which is of weak, inferior quality, it is simply a mass of perishable, nitrogenous matter that will soon go to putrefaction. Salt checks the growth of the lactic acid as quickly as a rush of air snuffs out a candle; therefore, it has complete control over the quality of the cheese in this direction. It preserves that quality for an indefinite time, provided it exists in a sufficient proportion and the cheese has been scientifically made. Then, again, salt gives firmness and flavor to the cheese.
Thus, perceiving that cheese, as a component of human food, could not exist without salt, the analogy between the purity of that article and the fine quality of cheese is at once apparent. It is needless to advise the use of nothing but a fine, pure grade of salt for savoring cheese. Perhaps, instead of needless, it is needful to admonish manufacturers in this regard. I regret to say that I have observed many who held false ideas of economy about so cheap an article as this briny product. A difference of twenty-five cents on a barrel would turn their judgment in favor of the cheaper, coarser article, and, while really the losers thereby, they would feel complacent over a supposed gain.
It is just such little slights as this—substituting poor for good salt—that help make up the discrepancy in quality already perceptible in American cheese. The dairymen of this country possess the most advantageous position of any class of dairymen in the world. For years their milch cattle have been bred toward the extinction of beef characteristics, and toward the fostering and enlargement of lacteal tendencies, until now, in point of blood, the general average is high. Intelligence, skilled labor, and ingenuity are at command and should so leaven the products of our dairies that they should stand above all competitors. Then, why be "Penny wise and pound foolish," when so grand a prize as national trade repu-
