498 



paintings and drawings, and those specimens of needlework, and of 

 leatherwork, to say nothing of the carpets, the flannels, the quilts, and 

 ten thousand " et ceteras" so nicely got up, so beautiful. Another year 

 shall tell that our wives and our daughters are not to be outdone, in 

 ; those matters of domestic labor and comfort. 



My hearers: I am drawing no fancy picture of the tendency of 

 these agricultural fairs; I am speaking of the sober realities of nature 

 and of facts, I am speaking of the present workings pent up in your 

 own breasts, of your present plans and determinations. These influen- 

 ces have for years been working in older States, and in older settled 

 parts of this State, till at length the inhabitants thereof have attained 

 a degree of perfection in the rearing of stock ; in agriculture and flori- 

 culture ; in the mechanical arts, and in works of comfort, fancy and 

 taste, truly astonishing to the beholder. Such a perfection as no prophet 

 or son of a prophet, only a score of years ago would have dared to 

 predict. The leaven is already working in our own county. The fine 

 specimens of elegance, utility and taste witnessed in the several depart- 

 ments, at this our first Annual Fair, show conclusively that our own cit- 

 izens also, are beginning to feel and to act under the genial influences 

 of a spirit of improvement. These first fruits, however, are but the 

 earnests, the foretastes of those richer manifestations yet to come; as 

 certain as that mind is capable of being moved by genial impulses, 

 and that like causes produce like results, so certain is it the influence of 

 this agricultural society is destined ere long, to revolutionize the entire 

 agricultural and mechanical operations of the county. The fire is kin- 

 dled, and no one can well extinguish it. The pebble is thrown upon 

 the waters, and circle will encompass circle, till the whole surface is dis- 

 turbed. The introduction of some of the best blooded stock into any 

 one or more of the towns, is destined to create such a desire for im- 

 provement in that department of husbandry, such a spirit of honorable 

 rivalship among the citizens, that ere long the poorest man that owns a 

 cow, will talk of his noble Durham, or of his beautiful Devon, 



The sprightly, active, wide awake Morgan, or the wild fire of a Black 

 Hawk will grace every carriage ; and instead of those shadow-like apol- 

 ogies for swine so often witnessed, will be seen the noble Leicester com- 

 mingling with those beautiful, fleshy, well lurned and well proportioned 

 Suftblks. Now all this is just what is needed in a new county like 



