MASS. BOARD OP AGRICULTURE. 503 



In reference to butter and cheese, where premiums are special- 

 ly offered for these products, it appears to your committee that 

 while the quality of the specimens presented for competition, 

 should be an element, and an important element, in making up 

 the award ; and while the furnishing of a statement of the 

 process of manufacture, should be required as a condition of the 

 award ; there should also be given in the statement, the quan- 

 tity of these articles made by the competitors during the sea- 

 son, or some specified time. We would go even further than 

 this, if it should be found practicable. We would require as a 

 condition of receiving a premium, that a certain standard in 

 quantity, during a given time, should have been reached. In 

 awarding premiums for grain crops, many of our societies pre- 

 scribe the number of bushels per acre that must be raised, to 

 entitle any one to be a competitor. This would seem to be a 

 wise rule. Why not apply a similar rule in respect to compet- 

 itors for the premiums for butter and cheese ? Something of 

 this kind has already been attempted. In the premium list of 

 the Essex Society for 1823, may be found the following offer : 



" For the greatest quantity of good butter, in proportion to 

 the number of cows producing it, (not fewer than four,) made 

 on any farm, from the 20th of May to the 20th of November, 

 26 weeks, and the quantity of butter averaging not less than 

 seven pounds per week for each cow, $20 ; for the second 

 greatest, f 15 ; for the third greatest, $10. The kinds of food 

 and the management of the butter, to be detailed." Then fol- 

 low these remarks, written undoubtedly by Timothy Pickering, 

 then president of the society : 



" The object of agricultural institutions is improvement ; and 

 in Essex none seems to be more wanted than in milch cows. 

 If the society were to continue their premiums during any 

 length of time, merely for the greatest quantity of butter, they 

 would not enforce any improvement in the quality of those 

 animals. Seven pounds of butter a week, for each cow, is less 

 than half of what the Oakes cow, of Danvers, produced in the 

 same time. The seven pounds a week, therefore, are very 

 attainable by every farmer who will improve his breed of cows, 

 and feed them to the full with juicy and highly nourishing 



