102 MASSACHUSETTS HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



tions of physical life, in Massachusetts, exist in our penal institu- 

 tions. The inmates of the prisons at Concord and Sherborn are 

 better fed and clothed than the average workingman. If we 

 should do as much for the law-abiding citizen, it will be a greater 

 triumph than success in horticulture. 



Mr. Atkinson, in reply to an inquiry from a lady how to cook 

 cheese, referred to Williams's " Chemistry of Cooking." He gave 

 an account of an experiment of his own in making a cheese 

 soufflt'C which proved delicious. He took a pound and a half of 

 the skimmiest cheese (which he broke up with a hatchet), two 

 loaves of stale baker's bread, two quarts of skimmed milk, salt, 

 pepper (black and Cayenne), dry mustard, and about a salt 

 spoonful of bicarbonate of soda. The mixture was kept simmer- 

 ing over night in a water-bath ; and at breakfast the fish balls and 

 brown bread were neglected for it. Though it was not indi- 

 gestible, one who partook of it very freely was made sick, so much 

 nitrogen and protein making it too rich. One pound of skim- 

 med milk cheese, which has sometimes been sold for a cent and a 

 half pfer pound, if rendered digestible is worth as much as three 

 pounds of sirloin beef, costing sixty cents — that is, it has as much 

 nutritive value. Cheese is too much neglected as an article of food, 

 in this country. The Parmesan cheese. served with macaroni is 

 a cooked cheese. In Italy it is common to serve grated cheese 

 with vegetable soup, and he had had it thu? served in New York. 

 When stewed, or grated and cooked in soups or with macaroni, 

 it is digestible and cheap food. 



In answer to an inquiry, Mr. Atkinson said that butter is only 

 fat — it gives the element of fat required in a well balanced dietary. 

 Oleomargarine when well made of good suet is a wholesome fat 

 food ; and, if sold for no more than it is fairly worth, he saw no 

 objection to using it. He thought the dairy people were making a 

 mistake in fighting it. 



O. M. Tinkliam, of North Pomfret, Vt., said that a person, near 

 this city, has kept from six Imndred to a thousand swine, which 

 were fed on city refuse until it was thought to give them the 

 cholera. These hogs were cooked in great vats, the fat floating 

 at the top, and five hundred tubs of it were seen marked with the 

 name of a person in New England who runs a creamery. 



President Walcott said that he had had as much to do with the 

 execution of the laws in regard to oleomargarine as any one, and 



