Durmar, Travnik, and Karaghi La-la. Cheese-hunting is one of
the greatest--and least competitively crowded--of sports. I hope this
book may lead others to give it a try.

[Illustration]

_Chapter Two_

The Big Cheese

One of the world's first outsize cheeses officially weighed in at four
tons in a fair at Toronto, Canada, seventy years ago. Another
monstrous Cheddar tipped the scales at six tons in the New York State
Fair at Syracuse in 1937.

Before this, a one-thousand-pounder was fetched all the way from New
Zealand to London to star in the Wembley Exposition of 1924. But,
compared to the outsize Syracusan, it looked like a Baby Gouda. As a
matter of fact, neither England nor any of her great dairying colonies
have gone in for mammoth jobs, except Canada, with that four-tonner
shown at Toronto.

We should mention two historic king-size Chesters. You can find out
all about them in _Cheddar Gorge,_ edited by Sir John Squire. The
first of them weighed 149 pounds, and was the largest made, up to the
year 1825. It was proudly presented to H.R.H. the Duke of York. (Its
heft almost tied the 147-pound Green County wheel of Wisconsin Swiss
presented by the makers to President Coolidge in 1928 in appreciation
of his raising the protective tariff against genuine Swiss to 50
percent.) While the cheese itself weighed a mite under 150, His Royal
Highness, ruff, belly, knee breeches, doffed high hat and all, was a
hundred-weight heavier, and thus almost dwarfed it.

It was almost a century later that the second record-breaking Chester
weighed in, at only 200 pounds. Yet it won a Gold Medal and a
Challenge Cup and was presented to the King, who graciously accepted
it. This was more than Queen Victoria had done with a bridal gift
cheese that tipped the scales at 1,100 pounds. It took a whole day's
yield from 780 contented cows, and stood a foot and eight inches high,
measuring nine feet, four inches around the middle. The assembled
donors of the cheese were so proud of it that they asked royal
permission to exhibit it on a round of country fairs. The Queen
assented to this ambitious request, perhaps prompted by the
exhibition-minded Albert. The publicity-seeking cheesemongers assured
Her Majesty that the gift would be returned to her just as soon as it
had been exhibited. But the Queen didn't want it back after it was
show-worn. The donors began to quarrel among themselves about what to
do with the remains, until fi