The actual difference between the different kinds of cheese made in Holland is due in part to the form and size, and in part to the mode of making. Every sort has also a name derived from its peculiarities, or from the provinces or sections where it is made. The varieties of cheese best known in the markets in South Holland are the spice cheese, the sweet milk cheese, known also under the name of Gouda cheese, the so-called May cheese, the Council’s cheese, the Jews’ cheese, and the English cheese, made in many places. Further up in North Holland, the North Dutch sweet milk cheese, as it is commonly called in the province, known in the foreign markets as Edam cheese, is almost exclusively made. A kind of sweet milk cheese is made to a limited extent, called Commissions’ cheese. In West Friesland, Utrecht, and South Holland, but few except sweet milk cheeses are made. In making cheese, the utmost cleanliness is most carefully observed in all the operations. Whoever is intrusted with this work is required to display the utmost neatness in his whole person, as well as in the dairy-room; and the vats and other utensils are daily scoured, washed with lye, and washed out in water and rinsed. The greatest attention is also paid to the transport of cheese to the weekly markets in the cities; and in whatever way his load is carried, whether by wagon or in little boats, the person intrusted with it is always dressed in the so-called cheese-frock, a large white linen, which is used exclusively for this purpose. At the market itself the cheese is laid on a four-cornered bench, two feet high, and exposed to view in a glittering white linen cloth. But, in order to keep off all dust and impurities, a sail-cloth is raised over the whole, called the cheese-sail; or it is covered with a sail-cloth covering, or sometimes with clean straw. But in other places it is customary to carry the cheese on wagons, in a white linen cloth, and covered with a woollen cover, ready packed for sale at the markets. CHEESE-MAKING IN SOUTH HOLLAND.--Spice cheese from skim-milk, and sweet milk or Gouda cheese, are the only kinds made to any extent in South Holland. Spice cheese, which derived its name from the addition of spices, is a firm, flat cheese, of about twenty pounds weight, brought to market generally colored red. It is three quarters of a foot thick, and one and a half feet in diameter, and is made as follows: [Illustration: Fig. 120.]