HAMPSHIRE, FRANKLIN AND 



Butter and Cheesg. 



The Committee believe they shall but assert the unanimous 

 opinion of this Society, and of very many in the community, 

 when they say that there are but very few interests of greater 

 importance, in conducting the farm, than the management of the 

 dairy. Probably there is no branch of husbandry, in which 

 skill and care are more directly beneficial and important than 

 in this. Nearly every individual in the entire community is 

 daily more or less affected by good or bad management in the 

 making of butter and cheese. 



It is very true that the towns within the limits of the Society 

 are not so largely engaged in producing these articles as some 

 others ; and none of them, perhaps, can with propriety be called 

 dairy towns. Yet the amount made here is by no means in- 

 considerable. According to the statistics for the year 1844, col- 

 lected and returned, by the assessors of the several towns, to the 

 secretary of the Commonwealth, it appears, there were made 

 in that year, in Hampshire and Franklin counties, about 

 twenty-four pounds of butter to each inhabitant, which is more 

 than double the quantity made in the State as a whole. The 

 quantity made in Hampden is somewhat less to each inhabitant, 

 although West Springfield, in that county, according to the re- 

 turns before named, made a larger quantity than any other town 

 in the State, with the exception of Sheffield, in Berkshire 

 county. The town of Worcester, in Worcester county, stands 

 the third in the quantity of butter made, and Amherst, in 

 Hampshire county, fourth. 



To show, in few words, the importance, in a pecuniary point 

 of view, of the products of the dairy throughout the State, as 

 compared with other articles produced by the farmer, it may 

 be necessary only to state that, taking the statistics before allu- 

 ded to as a basis of calculation, the value of butter alone, made 

 in 1844, was nearly double that of all the sheep then in the 

 State. It also exceeded swine, in value ; as it did also the ag- 

 gregate value of wheat, rye, barley, buckwheat and oats, raised 

 during the year. 



