=Form, Size and Packing.=—The old style American cheese is cylindrical, about 14 inches in diameter, and varying in depth to weigh between 60 and 80 pounds. Various other forms are now often made, square and long or in fancy shapes, such as a ball or a pineapple. Aside from such freaks, which have never become very popular, other deviations from the large, standard, American Cheddar, are also made to a considerable extent. People who have visited the beautiful National Dairy Shows held in turn in Chicago, Springfield, Mass., and Columbus, O., the National Milk and Dairy Farm Expositions of New York City, the Ontario Provincial Fair held each year at Toronto, or the annual State Fairs in New York, Wisconsin, Michigan and other cheesemaking sections will have in mind first the prominent exhibits of the regular Cheddar, showing a uniformity in texture, form and taste that is really remarkable. But one will also admire the variety of other forms. There are the _Flats_ or _Twins_, packed two in a box and weighing together the same as one _American_; the _Young Americas_ packed four in a box; the _Longhorns_ of six to eight inches in diameter; others made like a loaf of bread and creased so that a pound or two may be cut off fairly accurately, etc. [Illustration: Taking the cheese out of the press ] The _Giant Cheeses_, weighing five to six tons, occasionally exhibited and cut up at World Fairs and on similar occasions are, like the pineapple cheese, a curiosity rather than an industrial product. One of the best forms, in the writer’s opinion, is the small 5-lb. cheese, proportioned exactly like the large American. This makes a suitable size for an average family, the members of which have learned to appreciate a good cheese. If it is made smaller, too much is lost in the rind; if larger it gets too old before it can be consumed by one family. [Illustration: Curing room ] The larger cheeses are usually packed in neat, snug-fitting elm-wood boxes, with thin “Scale Boards” on the top and bottom of the cheese, the smaller ones in paraffined pressed pulp or pasteboard boxes. =Cleaning the Vats and Utensils.=—Like every other place where milk and its products are handled, the cheese factory must be kept scrupulously clean. Vats and utensils should be rinsed first with cold or lukewarm water or whey, then scrubbed with boiling hot water and if necessary with soda, soap, or washing powder. The surroundings should be kept neat and attractive, and the cheesemaker must see that the transportation cans are kept clean by the farmers and the milk delivered in good condition. [Illustration: Cheese box ] =Yield.=—The yield is around 10% of the milk. To make a pound of fresh cheese takes from nine to eleven pounds of milk. In curing, a part of the weight is lost by evaporation, but this loss is reduced to a minimum by paraffining.