+172. Stilton cheese+ bears the name of an English village[76] in which it was first sold. It is made from cow's milk and is typically a whole milk cheese, although part skim cheeses are regularly made and sold as lower grades. In the Stilton-making counties, the milk from Shorthorn cattle testing about 3.5 to 4.0 per cent fat is preferred to richer or poorer grades. Such milk is curdled with rennet at about 86° F. in about one hour; the curd is cut, dipped to a draining table covered with cloth and drained slowly over a period of several hours, commonly overnight. During this period considerable acidity is developed. The curd is then milled or broken by hand, salted, packed into hoops 15 to 16 inches high and 7 inches in diameter. These hoops are made from heavy tin (Fig. 26) with four rows of holes about 3/10 inch in diameter. The freshly filled hoops are allowed to stand and drain without pressure in a room at about 70° F. (Fig. 26). Such cheeses are turned every day for several days. When solid enough to stand the hoops are removed, the cheeses are scraped or rubbed with a knife until the surface is smooth, and commonly wrapped with a cloth bandage to maintain the shape, if the cheese is still too soft to stand firmly. In the factories, several rooms are used with varying temperature and relative humidities, which makes it possible to place each cheese under the condition best suited to its texture and condition of ripeness. In general, the dairy sections of England are much more humid than those of America and there are less violent changes in temperature. Stilton cheese-making has grown up to take advantage of this climatic factor in handling the product. Transplantation of such an industry necessitates a mastery not only of the manipulations but a grasp of the fundamental principles underlying the process and a readjustment of practices to preserve those principles. [Illustration: FIG. 26.--Stilton cheeses in hoops, draining.] Stilton is, then, a soured curd cheese in whose ripening a very prominent part is played by the green mold (usually some strain of _P. Roqueforti_) which grows throughout the cavities of its mass[77]. At its best, it has attractive texture and flavor. Much of it fails to reach high quality on account of the invasion of bacteria, _Oidium lactis_, and very frequently myriads of cheese mites. The following analysis was furnished as typical for ripe cheese by Miles Benson,[78] late professor of dairying at Reading, England: Water 31 per cent, fat 36 per cent, casein 29 per cent, mineral constituents including salt about 4 per cent. Approximately the same figures are given by Primrose McConnell (Agricultural Note Book). The low percentage of salt is another factor of uncertainty in the control of this Stilton product, as in Gorgonzola, since these cheeses are commonly high in water-content at first and are thus subject to invasion by Oidium.