298 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE. 



cows and their product and profits, however obtained and in 

 whatever they may consist. 



Rural encyclopedists have divided the dairy into three class- 

 es — the milk dairy, the cheese dairy, and the butter dairy. 

 All these were put within the scope of our commission. The 

 trustees of the State Society made no limitations and prescribed 

 no regulations for our inquiry. Their proposals were for the 

 three best dairies, each " of not less than six cows in number, 

 which shall have been owned by the exhibiters respective- 

 ly, and kept within the county, not less than five months pre- 

 vious to the cattle show." In the construction given to these 

 proposals by the trustees of the county society, which are made 

 the warrant and rule for the judgment of the committee, it is 

 assumed that the purpose obviously was, "to encourage the 

 better attention to the business of the dairy, and, in return for 

 the premiums, to secure the most varied and largest amount of 

 information in its successful and faithful management ; " and it 

 is further declared, that " this object is best to be promoted by 

 leaving each competitor to pursue his own course of manage- 

 ment at the peril that some other mode may be more produc- 

 tive under the conduct of some other competitor. Should 

 special and particular regulations, to be observed by all alike, 

 be prescribed, a compliance with these would indeed show who 

 was most successful in conforming to them, but would furnish 

 little or no information of better success under a different course 

 of practice. It was, therefore, only required, as a general rule, 

 but to a compliance with which competitors were to be rigidly 

 held, that " they exhibit their dairy of six cows, for which they 

 claim the premium, on the society's grounds at the cattle show, 

 and accompany the entry, made on the day before the exhibition, 

 by a statement in writing, under oath, of their management on 

 the farm, and their product during the season of trial, with all ' 

 such particulars as will enable the committee of judges to de- 

 cide satisfactorily, not only upon the relative claims of the 

 several competitors for the premiums, but upon the management 

 and absolute product in weight and profits of each dairy, re- 

 spectively, whether in butter, cheese, or milk, through the as- 

 signed period of trial, to wit, for five months before the show. 



Accordingly, under the above-recited rule the committee have 



