aid on it, and a stone on
that, of about twenty pounds weight. In an hour, the whey is run off,
and the cheese finished. They sprinkle a little salt on it every other
day in summer, and every day in winter, for six weeks. Seven _brentas_
of milk make a cheese of fifty pounds, which requires six months to
ripen, and is then dried to forty-five pounds. It sells on the spot for
eighty-eight livres, the one hundred pounds. There are now one hundred
and fifty cheeses in this dairy. They are nineteen inches diameter, and
six inches thick. They make a cheese a day, in summer, and two in three
days, or one in two days, in winter.

The whey is put back into the kettle, the butter-milk poured into it,
and of this, they make a poor cheese for the country people. The whey of
this is given to the hogs. Eight men suffice to keep the cows, and to do
all the business of this dairy. _Mascarponi_, a kind of curd, is made
by pouring some butter-milk into cream, which is thereby curdled, and is
then pressed in a linen cloth.

The ice-houses at Rozzano are dug about fifteen feet deep, and twenty
feet diameter, and poles are driven down all round. A conical thatched
roof is then put over them, fifteen feet high, and pieces of wood are
laid at bottom, to keep the ice out of the water which drips from it,
and goes off by a sink. Straw is laid on this wood, and then the house
filled with ice, always putting straw between the ice and the walls, and
covering ultimately with straw. About a third is lost by melting. Snow
gives the most delicate flavor to creams; but ice is the most
powerful congealer, and lasts longest. A tuft of trees surrounds these
ice-houses.

Round Milan, to the distance of five miles, are corn, pasture, gardens,
mulberries, willows, and vines. For, in this state, rice ponds are not
permitted within five miles of the cities.

_Binasco. Pavia_. Near Casino the rice-ponds begin, and continue to
within five miles of Pavia, the whole ground being in rice, pasture, and
willows. The pasture is in the rice grounds which are resting. In the
neighborhood of Pavia, again, are corn, pasture, &c. as round Milan.
They gave me green pease at Pavia.

April 24. _Voghera. Tortona. Novi_. From Pavia to Novi corn, pasture,
vines, mulberries, willows; but no rice. The country continues plain,
except that the Apennines are approaching on the left. The soil, always
good, is dark till we approach Novi, and then red. We cross the Po where
it is