272 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE. 



no easy matter to select eight, the number of premiums offered, 

 which should unquestionably surpass the rest in all the qual- 

 ities essential to good butter, and then to determine the relative 

 value of these specimens. 



The samples of cheese, fifteen in number, were also highly 

 creditable to the producers, and would compare favorably with 

 the finest products of the best cheese districts in the country. 

 This is particularly remarkable, as the subject of cheese making 

 has received but little attention from the farmers of our county, 

 for the reason that they have found it more profitable to sell 

 milk or manufacture butter. 



It is to be presumed that those who have succeeded in 

 making good cheese or butter, have information to impart 

 which it is important for others to know. On this account, 

 the society very justly requires that a statement detailing 

 the mode of manufacture, shall accompany each article offered 

 for premium. Now, if these statements are to be of any use, 

 jthey must contain something more than the rudest outlines 

 of the process by which the article has been made ; they must 

 give., as far as possible, a minute account of each step in 

 the procedure. Two of the competitors made the following 

 statements : — 



" Set milk twenty-four to thirty-six hours. Salt with rock 

 salt, one ounce to the pound." 



"This butter was churned in the old-fashioned churn, and 

 the butter was washed out, salted to suit the taste." 



The other statements were more full than the above, but 

 only one of them stated the kind of churn used, which was 

 a stone one ; not one the time of making butter, success in 

 winter or summer, best feed for butter or for cheese, the feed 

 of the cows from which the same were produced, and none 

 of the more doubtful points upon which the experience and 

 success of the dairy women must have given them decided 

 opinions and valuable knowledge. From their various state- 

 ments we gather the following particulars, which we are 

 inclined to think of value ; that the milk is strained when 

 warm from the cow through a linen cloth, set in well scalded 

 pans, two inches deep ; placed in a cool and dry place in 

 summer, with all eatables excluded, but not so airy as to 

 disturb the cream ; the cream is skimmed before the milk is 



