210 HAMPDEN SOCIETY. 



Butter, 



The essential qualities of good butter are firmness, dryness 

 and sweetness. The first quality depends principally on dairy 

 stock, the two last depend principally on management and skill 

 in making. 



Butter of the highest excellence has these three qualities 

 combined^ and is moreover qualified or seasoned with the right 

 modicum of pure salt. 



No butter can properly be called good which is not sweet, 

 and this quality must be inherent. It cannot be attained by 

 qualifying it with any foreign ingredient. All sweet butter, 

 however, is not good ; it must be dry or free from milk. As- 

 suming that it is both sweet and dry, another quality is essen- 

 tial to the highest attainment in the art, \'\z. firmness, and 

 while this quality is attributed principally to dairy stock, it 

 depends much on the quality of their food, and is not a little 

 affected by management in the dairy room. 



The three qualities above mentioned attained and combined, 

 the excellence of butter depends much upon the seasoning. 

 True, butter must be seasoned with salt, but not with every 

 kind of salt. It must be pure, and though seasoned with salt, 

 the salt must be thoroughly incorporated with the butter. 



Every other part of making butter may be committed to 

 strange hands without undue hazard, but this is the sole pre- 

 rogative of her who presides over the dairy room, and the 

 highest exercise of the art of making good butter. 



There were seventeen lots of butter on exhibition ; fifteen 

 were entered for premium. 



RICHARD BAGG, Jr., Chairman. 



Vegetables. 



Never since the organization of the society has the county 



of Hampden been so well represented from the garden, either 



in the amount of vegetables, or the superior quality and beauty 



of those on exhibition as at the present show. The ready 



