Reports of Committees. 33 



Fancy Basket, Miss A. Akens of Great Barring ton, 50 



Worsted Bouquet, Mrs. E. L. Tobey of Alford, 50 



Crystalized Grasses, Mrs. E. E. Barrows, of Pittsfield, 1 00 



Worsted Flowers, Miss E. Williams of South Egremout, 1 00 



For best feather work, Miss M. J. Snyder of Great Barrington, 3 00 



2d do., Mrs. S. M. Cooper of Stockbridge, 2 00 



Bernard Almonte, ) 



Mrs. Alexander Hyde, > Committee. 

 Mrs. Cook, ) 



EMBROIDERY. 



The Committee on the embroidery department beg leave to report that 

 the art of working silk, woolen, cotton or linen threads with a needle into 

 woolen, muslin or other fabric, is most successfully practiced by the ladies 

 of Berkshire. 



Over one hundred articles that were submitted to the excellent judgment 

 of your committee clearly show that, although this delicate art has been 

 practiced ever since the "cunning workman" Aholiab "embroidered in blue 

 and purple and scarlet and line linen" for the tabernacle of Israel; although 

 the Babylonians were celebrated for their embroidered draperies ; and the 

 women of Sidon were handy with the needle long before the Trojan war ; 

 and the needle women of Greece equalled the finest paintings ; and al- 

 though in the great "Cattle Show" of 1S51 in London, Turkey bore off the 

 prize, it has remained for the female sewiug machines of Berkshire to excel 

 them all. 



Your committee find it difficult to do justice to the variety, skill and 

 taste shewn in their department. Time would fail them to tell of pin- 

 cushions with beads and pincushions without beads ; "pillows" so naturally 

 ornamented with flowers that one's sofa would seem a very "bed of roses;" 

 shawls transporting the imagination immediately to Cashmere and Paisley ; 

 slippers so inviting to weary feet ; mats not tor feet but for the table, fine 

 and useful ; collars so lovely and scarfs so graceful ; ladies' jackets, and 

 sacks for infants ; underclothing too numerous to mention and not too 

 beautiful to wear outside ; then the tatting ! O such tatting (not tat fling 

 mind you!) afghans whose gorgeous colors almost rival the robes that 

 Autumn wears ; bead work showing Indian blood ; silk paintings elabo- 

 rate enough to make the king of Persia envious ; difficult crochet work, 

 done by fingers older than four score years, and tatting equally wonderful 

 by one of only twelve years ; the tidies too, tidies for everything, tidies for 

 cake and tidies for chairs, sofa tidies and table tidies ; for a time the com- 

 mittee saw nothing but tidies — tidies to right of them, tidies to the left of 

 them, tidies in front of them ; thread tidies, worsted tidies and cotton 

 tidies; crochet tidies and tatting tidies, netted tidies and embroidered tidies ; 

 a flood tide of tidies, convincing an observer that Berkshire is a most tidy 

 place. 



