Cut the curd very fine. Seldom, if ever, is a curd cut too fine. As the object is to get rid of the whey, the finer it is cut, the more easily we achieve our object. It is not as far from the center of a small piece of curd for the whey to run out as it is from the center of a large piece. By cutting fine, we expose more surface for the whey to run out of, and we have smaller pieces to heat up. Curd is a bad conductor of heat. If the pieces are large, it takes a long time for the heat to slowly penetrate them when we want to increase it. The small pieces, therefore, absorb the heat more evenly, and this gives an evener action of the rennet. "COOKING." After the cutting is done, if the whey is separating rapidly, the heat may be started at once. If the action of the rennet is rather slow, it is better to wait a few minutes for the curd to harden a little, while with your hand you carefully rub down the side of the vat, thus removing all the curd that may be adhering to it. Not over five minutes waiting, as a usual thing, is necessary, and generally there need be no waiting. But as soon as the heat is started, begin to gently stir the curd with a rake, by passing it down into the middle of the vat and gently raising the curd on each side. If uncut pieces appear, carefully separate them with the teeth of the rake. Keep up this stirring, which may be more violent after the curd hardens, until the whole is heated up to 98 or 100 degrees--or to blood heat. The reason for constant agitation is to keep an even temperature throughout the mass and prevent the curd from packing. This secures even action of the rennet. The reason for going to blood heat is because rennet is most active at this point. It is the temperature indicated by Nature. It is the one at which we digest our food, and the one at which the calf's stomach forms curd and afterwards digests it. The pepsin or gastric juice is more potent at blood heat, and this pepsin or rennet is what does the work. The heat does not cook the curd in the vat any more than it cooks the milk in the cow's udder. We choose 98 degrees as the proper temperature because the digestive or cheesing process of the rennet goes on faster at this point. To go above or below it is to lose instead of gain. This temperature should therefore be maintained until the curd is "cooked"--that is, until the action of the rennet has expelled the proper amount of whey and the curd is as firm as we want it. Anent the stirring of curds, use the hands as little as possible. There is nothing better for this purpose than the common hay rake with the handle shortened and one tooth cut off from each end by severing the rake-head within three quarters of an inch of the next tooth. DRAWING THE WHEY.