SECRETARY'S REPORT. ii>j 



might rank as high in market as that which is made in any other 

 State, though perhaps not fully equal to what might be done in 

 sections more highly favored by nature. 



There is room and opportunity for great improvement in the 

 butter of Maine. Some is made as good as need be, and a great 

 deal more is made which is not ; neither is it as good as it might 

 be. One might well shrink from a mission to say to any of our 

 worthy matrons or fair maidens, Thou art the woman ; thy butter is 

 not good : but here is ati evident, indisputable fact, that the utter- 

 ance would be true if addressed to three out of four, and perhaps 

 to even a greater proportion. 



It is not, however, wholly their fault. To a great extent even, 

 it is due to causes beyond their control, and the farmer is often 

 more to blame than the wife or maid. Too often the cows are 

 poor butter makers to begin with, or the pastures are scanty, 

 weedy, and overstocked besides ; in the barn the fare and treat- 

 ment are meagre and shabby, and the only rooms at command for 

 milk and butter, making and keeping, perhaps are ill adapted for 

 their use, and far from what they should be. Under such or simi- 

 lar circumstances it is simply impossible to turn out first rate 

 butter. 



These drawbacks seriously impair the quality of the product, 

 and absolutely prevent a high degree of excellence, but they are 

 not the cause of its being greasy, or cheesy, or salvy, or musty, 

 or tainted. To apportion the blame fairly, a good many traders 

 and customers should come in for a share, who virtually offer 

 inducements to negligence by making less difference in the price 

 than actually exists in value. It is said that in New York and 

 other noted dairy States only a very small proportion of the but- 

 ter made is strictly of first quality, and yet I have often been 

 told by hotel keepers in this State that they send there for it only 

 because they must ; but if they could depend on a uniform supply 

 of such as they were not ashamed to set before their guests, they 

 would pay a quarter more for it than the average price of such as 

 is offered them. Some of our dairy men profit by this. I have 

 not known a more successful farmer in this State than one who has 

 made the production of butter his leading aim ; everything on the 

 farm bent to this object, and no pains were spared, in any regard, 

 to secure excellence ; and for many years his butter, as he told 

 me, commanded from twenty to twenty-five per cent, more than 



