strainer, which takes some of the animal heat and odor from it, and it is then canned and taken to one of those small platforms by the roadway on the edge of the farm, whence it is carried away by the collector for the factory. The collector comes along the misty lane slowly, nodding and exchanging words of greeting with the laborers, who are already astir, and perhaps he has for a companion as far as the railway-depot some rosy girl who is going to Utica or Syracuse on a shopping expedition. From each farm on the way FILLING THE FORMS. he receives a can or two of milk, and before the end of his route is reached the wagon is fully loaded. At the factory the milk is weighed, not measured, and, when any doubt exists in the mind of the factor as to its purity or strength, he tests it in a small glass measure, which is so marked as to show the percentage of cream that settles over the milk, comparing it with another glass containing milk that is known to be pure. If the result is an insufficiency of cream, another test is made with the lactometer, and, if this confirms the suspicions of the factor, the offending farmer is denied the use of the factory. One excellent and striking thing in the factory is the simplicity of the devices used in conducting the milk from one part to another. From the collector's wagon the cans are elevated by a small crane and emptied into the weighing - can, which stands on platform-scales, and which is provided with a faucet near the bottom. Instead of being dipped and carried by hand to the manufacturingvats, the milk is drawn off by the faucet into broad tin pipes, through which it is conducted by connecting branches to any part of the lower stories; and the visitor is at once impressed by other equally simple yet efficacious appliances in use. The milk received at night is kept in well-sheltered vats, which are cooled by streams of running water surrounding them, and in the morning, when its temperature is about 60°, it is mingled with the additional supplies that the collector has brought in. The greatest care is taken with both morning and evening milk-for it is a strangely-sensitive article, and is affected by sudden changes of temperature as well as by unwholesome odors in the place where it is stored. For this, if for no other reason, the factory is kept in good sanitary condition; the floors are of some hard material, such as brick-tiles or cement, and numerous drains carry off all moisture: water and hose extend to all parts, and an unlimited supply of the former is as indispensable to the factor as grass is to the farmer; the scrubbing-brush, the mop, and the wash-bucket, are used unsparingly and with effects that might fill a model housemaid with envy; all refuse is removed to a safe distance, and fresh air is admitted in abundance. The manufacturing-vats are built of wood lined with tin, having a space between the two for steam to heat the milk, or water to cool it, as may be desired. The tin is fitted with a frame and handles for holding it in place or lifting it out; and some vats are provided with heaters underneath. As soon as the vat is filled, steam is turned on, and the maker stands by, carefully watching the milk, and occasionally trying its temperature with a silver-plated thermometer. He adds small quantities of annotto to it, annotto being the extract of a seed, which gives the cheese the rich yellow color it has when it is put on the market, and without which color it would be almost unsalable. When it reaches a temperature of 84° some rennet is poured into it, and the process of coagulation begins, separating the curds from the whey. In that process the great wonder of cheese-making lies. Properly speaking, a rennet is the preserved stomach of any young quadruped; but among dairymen it is a preserved part of the stomach of a sucking-calf, or the liquid prepared from that material. It is not a pleasant-looking object, and its looks are better than its smell, which to inexperienced nostrils is abominable. The thing it most resembles is the bladder used in packing lard; it is tough, fibrous, translucent, and yellow. The Bavarians have acquired unequaled skill in preparing it, and about seven-eighths of all the rennets used in the United States are bought from them. The liquid extracted from it is a pale amber in color, and its potency varies according to the method of its preparation. It is imported in zinc-lined cases, each case containing about twenty-five hundred rennets. When the cheese-maker pours his rennet into the vat of milk, a quick and wonderful change takes place in the contents. The liquid thickens to the consistency of cream, and from the consistency of cream it assumes the appearance of a solid, which shrinks from the sides of the vat and leaves a yellow whey in the seams. This action, which is caused by the rennet, is almost exactly the same as that of digestion, the extract solution containing the principle of gastric juice, and the only difference being that in making cheese the process is slower than in Nature. The solution is filled with minute globular bodies, Professor Arnold having found one thousand by actual count in one five-hundredth part of a drop taken from a gallon of water in which a single rennet had been soaked—at which rate a good rennet would probably contain two hundred billion of them. These atoms are alive, constituting the active agency of the rennet, and they are the real cause of the change that takes place in the vat of milk. it is cooked too much, it will be drawn into longer threads. We will suppose that it is in a proper condition, however, and the supposition is not a daring one, as practice and instinct combine in the experienced cheese-maker to tell him the exact moment when it is done, in the same way-to resume our culinary simile-that unformulated intuition tells the old-fashioned cook the supreme moment when her roast is done to the turn. Discretion as well as experience is an essential quality, moreover. Too much acidity or too little will spoil the cheese; atmospheric conditions must be noted, and the precise strength of the milk must be discovered and considered, one strength requiring peculiarities of treatment that another strength does not. The curd being "just right," the whey is drained off and afterward returned to the farmers, who use it as food for swine. The curd is then put into a long box with a perforated bottom, in which it is tossed about, aired, and salted, two and a half or two and three-quarters pounds of salt being allowed to every thousand pounds of milk. It is now in a coarse, granular form, and is ready for the final process of pressing and moulding, by which all superfluous moisture is forced out of it, and it is shaped into the substantial circular form in which it reaches the provision - dealer's counter. It is shoveled into a metallic box or a series of boxes lined with muslin, which forms the wrapper of the cheese, and a pressure of from three to ten tons is applied to it by means of a screw for eighteen hours. There are single presses in which only one cheese can be pressed, and “gang-presses" in which a whole row can be pressed at a time. If the temperature was allowed to remain at 84° a long time, it would be necessary to advance the curd in the vat, and to hasten the process it is increased to blood-heat. The maker then cuts the floating mass into small cubes—this operation facilitating the separation of the curd from the whey-using two peculiar knives, which have the appearance of elongated curry-combs. There is a perpendicular knife formed of eleven long blades, which is drawn length-room." wise along the vat, cutting the curd into narrow strips; and there is an horizontal knife formed of about thirty-six shorter blades, which is pushed athwart the vat, cutting the strips into small, uniform squares. The maker uses the two knives in succession with a firm, practised hand, and the tremulous mass sinks in a rising sea of whey. The next part of the process is called “cooking the curd," and the temperature is gradually increased to 98°. Either with his naked arm, or with a sort of wire gridiron called an "agitator," the maker stirs the contents of the vat again and again with the same care that a good cook takes in basting her roast of beef, the object being to prevent the curd from settling and baking at the bottom of the vat; and, while the heating is going on, a degree of acidity is developed until it becomes quite distinct. What is known as the hot-iron test is now applied to determine whether or not the curd is mature enough to be pressed. An iron is heated to such a degree that water dropped upon it simmers, and one end of it is put to a small piece of curd. If the curd is not cooked enough it will not adhere to the iron; if it is in proper condition it will cling to the iron, and when drawn away will lengthen into threads; or, if From the press the cheese is taken to the curingroom, where it ripens for the market, the processes that we have described taking place in the "makeThe curing-room is on a higher story, and is furnished with long rows of common wooden tables; the atmosphere is cool, and the light is low. There is a store-room above it, and the lower story is connected with it by an elevator. The time allowed for curing is usually about twenty-five or thirty days, and during this period the cheese is turned from side to side at least once in every twenty-four hours, small quantities of whey, butter, or other grease, being rubbed on it to prevent the surface from cracking. Any exudation that appears on the surface is removed by a wash of water and potash, which also prevents the depredations of the troublesome cheesefly; and, finally, at the expiration of curing-time, the cheese is packed, neatly and securely, in wooden boxes. The boxes cost from twelve to fifteen cents apiece, and their manufacture is an interesting feature of the business. The wood of which they are made is elm, and is cut exclusively by Messrs. Burrill, Ives & Co., at Trenton, Michigan. The sides are formed of strips sixty-five inches long, ten inches wide, and one-fifth of an inch thick. These are sent in bundles of fifty to the men who put the boxes together. The circular tops and bottoms are packed in bundles of a thousand, and the narrow strips that form the rims of the lids are packed in bundles of one hundred. Complicated machinery, extensive buildings, and hundreds of workmen, are employed in this branch of the business alone. At the cheese-factory all the nutrition of the milk is embodied in the cheese, and there is another class of factories called "creameries," in which both butter and cheese are made from the same milk. The uninitiated reader will probably suppose that a deterioration of quality is inevitable; but such is not the case. Creamery butter is made of pure cream, and brings a much higher price than ordinary butter, and the cheese made from the remaining milk tion of novelties. Henry O. Freeman, of Chenango County, New York, has invented a method by which the curd from skimmed milk may be enriched by substituting a cheaper oil for the cream which has been removed; and this process has been practised with remarkable success in a number of establishments. The commercial problem involved in creamery-practice is simple. The money received for the butter nearly equals the usual receipts for the milk, and the cheese-returns are additional. So long as such a condition prevails, a tendency toward creameries may be expected, although the followers of the orthodox manufacture denounce it heartily." is very little inferior to that made in the ordinary factory. The milk, as it is delivered by the farmers, is poured into deep pails called "coolers," and the coolers are placed in a shallow cistern, through which water circulates at a temperature of 50°. When it has reached a temperature of 60°, the milk is skimmed, and the resultant cream is put into other coolers at a temperature of 65°, remaining in them for twelve hours, when it is churned by steam. In regard to the cheese, a well-known writer says: "The old-fashioned 'skim-cheese' is a drug in the market, and an embarrassment to the trade, but the modern skimmed-milk cheese approaches very closely to the full-cream article. In this branch of the manufacture there is a tendency to the introduc FACTORY. Once a week, on Mondays, the representatives of the factories take samples of their products to Little Falls, where they are met by representatives of the New York dealers. Very often the samples are not tested at all, the maker's name being a satisfactory guarantee of the quality; but in some instances the buyers are more wary, and plunge a sharp steel instrument called a "trier" into the cheese. The trade sometimes amounts to ten thousand boxes, worth ninety thousand dollars, in one day; and as much business, or more, is done at Utica, where there is another market. In New York City the business is done at the Butter and Cheese Exchange, which is an offspring of the old Produce Exchange, and which claims to represent more than one hun perity, and points to one direction in which trust may be placed for the future; it is the embodiment of the remarkable commercial success that had its beginnings in the homestead of Jesse Williams at Rome; it signifies the thousands of men and women and the millions of capital employed by the industry from East to West; and, if we look at it with imagination, it takes us abroad on misty summer mornings over lovely pasture-lands, purple with clover, and into the model dairies where cleanliness is almost elevated into the region of art-even farther, it takes us across the ocean to the workmen's homes in English cities, where it is a great and indispensable Some lesson may be learned from the commonest objects of life, and the simplest article of diet may afford food for pleasant reflection besides physical aliment. Take, for example, this one thing of which we have been writing, or rather at which we have been nibbling. Our after-dinner portion shows us a great natural source of the country's material pros-blessing. THE ABOUT THE BALLET. HE modern ballet, born in 1489, is the elder | with it, moderating its license and regulating its sister of the modern opera, born in 1597. In limits. The choral dance of tragedy was probably France, Louis XIV., by royal decree, founded the a series of studied and stately motions, but little Academy of Dancing eight years before he founded akin to the specimens of saltatorial skill with which the Academy of Music. The two sisters have jour- we are familiar. Passing across the Adriatic to neyed along together; Euterpe, housed magnificent- Italy, we find the Muses availing themselves of the ly, has always been hospitable toward Terpsichore. aid of Terpsichore in the pantomimic plays most In Paris and Vienna, in St. Petersburg and in Mi- popular among the Romans. With the coming of lan, attached to the opera-house and endowed by the the northern barbarians, dancing began to die out, state, are dancing-schools, taking at an early age the and in time the dense and dismal blackness of the child they are to train for the service of the light- | dark ages fell upon it even more heavily than on hearted and light-footed Muse. In extravagant exthe other arts. penditure, and in magnificence of display, Vienna vies with Paris. In directness of artistic aim, and in beauty of artistic execution, the city by the Seine surpasses its rival on the Danube. "La Source' is as glittering as "Fantasca," and as gayly appareled; and it is far more fully informed with the poetic grace which is the ballet's sole excuse for being. In both the Austrian and the Russian capital the aim is to rival the French, and in both the influence and the surroundings of the dance are French. Milan clings to its own traditions. But it is in France that the art became fully developed; it is in France that it can be seen to most advantage; and the story of the rise and progress of the ballet can best be told in connection with its grafting and growth in that country. I. THE history of the ballet is the story of the slow development of an intricate art from simple origin. From the choral dances of the Greeks to the cachuca of the Elsslers is a long stride, and Terpsichore was over two thousand years taking it. Slowly and surely, step by step (to use an appropriate phrase), the complex ballet of to-day has been evolved from the almost accidental and perhaps halfunconscious motions of the early Bacchic revels. The origin of dancing was probably simultaneous with the origin of music; the rhythm of the first song was soon accompanied by the steps and the gestures of the first dance. Like the early music, the first dances were doubtless religious; if not so at first, they soon became devotional. The worship of Bacchus, like the religious exercises of the Shakers of our day, and of certain dervishes, was accompanied with dancing. The Hebrews esteemed it a fitting aid to song in the service of the Lord. David danced before the ark, and Hebrew history is full of the use of the dance in thanksgiving and praise. The early Egyptians used it in like manner; perhaps also the Hindoos. Among the Greeks it was held in honor. Plato praised dancing highly, and considered that it conduced to virtue; and throughout Greek literature are scattered innumerable references to it, in its religious and in its secular aspect. As the Greek drama developed out of the Dionysiac festivities, it carried the Bacchic dance | But, with the returning dawn, Terpsichore awakened to a new life. It was, indeed, a renascence, a new birth, with more vigorous vitality than before. What had been merely the dance was soon to become the ballet. And this, like many another discovery of those days, was due to the priest. The canonization of St. Charles Borromeo was celebrated in Lisbon by the invention of the ambulatory ballet, a combination of revels, marches, dances, shows of all kinds on land and sea, linked together by some fable, and somewhat akin to the masks which were afterward to task the wits of Ben Jonson, give occasion for the skill of Inigo Jones, and amuse the eyes of Elizabeth. With equal expenditure and extravagance was celebrated the beatification of St. Ignatius Loyola, the founder of the Jesuits. St. Charles Borromeo was afterward the favorite of the Jansenists, who were opposed to all the vain shows of this life; while the followers of Loyola were more liberal in their relations with the stage, and they allowed their pupils to figure in ballets as late as the time of Molière. In the entertaining little book of M. Castil-Blaze-" La Danse et les Ballets"-is an account of these priestly festivals, and also of the procession-for it seems to have been but little more, although it is called a ballet-which were given in Aix, in 1462, by King René of Anjou. In these various celebrations dancing was introduced to give relief and variety, yet there was a gradual approach to the idea of using it to tell a story by itself; and to Bergonzio di Botta, of Tortona, is perhaps due the credit of first achieving this, and thus inventing the modern ballet. In 1489 he spread a feast in honor of Galeas, Duke of Milan, who had just married Isabella of Aragon, at which the ballet alternated with the banquet, a dance in character by mythological personages preluding each course of the repast, and varying the monotony of too steadfast a devotion to the table. It was with the appropriate pas de deux of Bacchus and Silenus that the entertainment came to an end after having lasted nigh upon six or seven hours. After this the progress of the ballet was rapid. In Italy it was encouraged by the pope and other temporal princes. There Catharine de' Medici imbibed a taste for it, which she carried to France with |