3**» Report* of Committees. 



CHEESE. 



For the best cheese, Mrs. William Stevens of Sheffield, 

 2d do,, Mrs. J. A. K line of Egremont, 



3d do, Mrs. Orrin E (Mark of Sheffield; 

 4th do, Mrs. Ralph Little of Sheffield, 

 5th do, Mrs. H. W. Canfield of Sheffield, 

 6th do, Mrs. John Cr. Mansir of Monterey. 

 7th do, Mrs. C. I). Lang-don of Monterey, 

 8th do, Mrs. C. Gurtiss of Mew Marlboro, 



Harrison Garfield, 

 Frederick Fitch, 

 S. W. Wright, 



BREAD, MAPLK SUGAR AND SYRUP. 



The tasting powers of a committee were never more severely tried than in 

 the examination of fifty- four specimens of bread and biscuit, which your 

 committee have this day been called upon to make in deciding which was the 

 best. We have not the presumption to suppose that our decision is an in- 

 fallible one, but we have looked at each loaf and each pan of biscuit care- 

 fully, and tasted of each, and retasted of several that were classed as letter 

 A, and after taxing our gustatory powers to their utmost limit, w T ere still 

 undecided which was letter A and No 1. We are much obliged to those 

 ladies who have shown so much skill in that most important department of 

 housewifery, bread-making, and brought specimens of their handy work to 

 grace our exhibition, and we felt some compunctions of conscience in muti- 

 lating so many fine looking loaves and not awarding the manufacturers with 

 any premium as compensation. 



The art of making good bread is rarer than some suppose, and requires 

 both talent and tact. The chemical professor may talk very learnedly of 

 the proportions of starch and gluten requisite in good flour, and of that 

 wonderful plant, yeast, "whose seed is in itself" and is propagated with such 

 astonishing^ rapidity when in contact with warm, moist dough, so that a 

 "little leaven, leavens the whole lump," and of the change which this yeast 

 effects upon the starch, converting it first into sugar and afterwards into 

 alcohol and carbonic acid, which being retained by the gluten, causes nu- 

 merous little cells that make the dough swell, and still not be able to make 

 as good bread as Bridget, who never heard that there was such a thing as 

 the yeast plaut. Still this does not prove that Bridget would not become 

 a better bread maker if she understood the science of her art, or that the 

 professor would not excel her if he had her experience in manipulation. 

 We cannot expect all our bread to be spongy and sweet, until a little 

 more knowledge is combined with the practice. When women generally 

 assert their right to education, with the same zeal with which some of them 

 now claim the right of suffrage, the advent of "the good time coming" will 



