292 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE. 



offer, is a desire to promote the interest of the manufacturers, 

 and the benefit of the consumers. 



Zebina L. Raymond, Chairman. 



BERKSHIRE. 



From the Report of the Committee. 



Butter and Bread. — We must decide upon certain qualities, 

 which should be indispensable to insure a prize for butter. 



The first requisite is cleanliness. In the language of another, 

 any suspicion of unfaithfulness here, cloys the appetite at once, 

 and makes one perfectly willing to eat his bread alone. 



Nearly allied to this is the absence of all unpleasant taste in 

 butter. Many housewives, who perhaps are not justly charge- 

 able with want of neatness, permit this article of manufacture 

 to go from their hands, intermixed with substances entirely 

 foreign to the pure article. Salt is one of them — and though 

 necessary in certain proportions, it will hardly do to adopt the 

 principle that there cannot be too much of a good thing. 



Butter seems to possess in a remarkable degree, the power of 

 appropriating to itself the flavor of substances with which it is 

 in near contact. 



We believe that one grand defect in making butter is, that 

 the cream is kept too long before being churned. 



Another quality is color and density. Common consent 

 declares the color should be yellow. It is granted that this is 

 not wholly within the dairy-woman's power, but if she has a 

 husband, and knows how to manage him, she may not find it 

 difficult to induce him to keep only such cows, as shall by the 

 aid of her hands produce an article which shall be as pleasing 

 to the eye, as it is tempting to the appetite. 



Your committee entered upon the duty assigned them, with 

 much diffidence, well knowing that to treat upon any point so 

 connected with the good housewife's reputation, as the making of 

 bread and butter, must be a matter of great delicacy, and how- 

 ever justly might be the awards, dissatisfaction would undoubt- 

 edly occur, yet in the discharge of their duty, they can safely 

 say, they have been actuated by no partial considerations. 



Herman L. Bates, Chairman. 



