But these experiments have demonstrated beyond question that the abnormal ripening which is common in cheese factories is due to the presence of undesirable species of bacteria in the milk.  Many of the experiments in making cheeses by means of artificial cultures of bacteria have resulted in decidedly abnormal cheeses.  Many of the cheeses thus manufactured have shown imperfections in ripening which are identical with those actually occurring in the cheese factory.  Several different species of bacteria have been found which, when artificially used thus for ripening cheese, will give rise to the porosity and the abnormal swelling of the cheese already referred to (Fig. 24).  Others produced bad tastes and flavours, and enough has been done in this line to demonstrate beyond peradventure that the abnormal ripening of cheese is due primarily to the growth of improper species therein.  Quite a long list of species of bacteria which produce abnormal ripening have been isolated from cheeses, and have been studied and experimented with by bacteriologists.  As a result of this study of abnormal ripening, there has been suggested a method of partially controlling these—­remedying them.  The method consists simply in testing the fermenting qualities of the milk used.  A small sample of milk from different dairies is allowed to stand in the cheese factory by itself until it undergoes its normal souring.  If the fermentation or souring that thus occurs is of a normal character, the milk is regarded as proper for cheese making.  But if the fermentation that occurs in any particular sample of milk is unusual; if an extraordinary amount of gas bubbles are produced, or if unpleasant smells and tastes arise, the sample is regarded as unfavourable for cheese making, and as likely to produce abnormal ripening in the cheeses.  Milk from this source would therefore be excluded from the milk that is to be used in cheese making.  This, of course, is a tentative and an unsatisfactory method of controlling the ripening, and yet it is one of some practical value to cheese makers.  It is the only method that has yet been suggested of controlling the ripening.

Our bacteriologists, of course, are quite confident that in the future more practical results will be obtained along this line than in the past.  If it is true that cheeses are ripened by bacteria; if it is true that different qualities in the cheese are due to the growth of different species of bacteria during the ripening, it would seem to be possible to obtain the proper kind of bacteria and to furnish them to the cheese maker for artificially inoculating his cheese, just as it has been possible to furnish artificially cultivated yeasts to the brewer, and as it has become possible to furnish artificially cultivated bacteria to the butter maker.  We must, however, recognise this to be a matter for the future.  Up to the present time no practical results along the lines of bacteria have been obtained which our cheese manufacturers can make use of in the way of controlling with any accuracy this process of cheese ripening.