804 



Wo do not say tliat the agricultural society has been the sole cause 

 of this great change. Its influence has been directed in another way, 

 in a different channel ; not directly to procuring settlers in the county, 

 but to bringing in a better stock of horses, an improved breed of cattle 

 and sheep, to raising better colts, better calves, better lambs, better wool, 

 better wheat, corn, rye, oats and potatoes, to obtaining better farm im- 

 plements, and to the general cultivation of the soil, iu which there is 

 the most marked change for the better. 



These annual gatherings have certainly had a powerful influence in 

 directing the change which has been going on all over the county 

 during the last five years, a thousand times over repaying the farmer, 

 the mechanic and the manufacturer for their time, trouble and expense 

 in sustaining and keeping up these yearly exhibitions of their art and 

 industry. It is to this end that our fairs should be sustained and made 

 interesting ; not merely as a great public show, got up to gratify the 

 curiosity, as people would go into the circus or a menagerie, but for the 

 great and ennobling purpose of bringing together in one place, where the 

 whole can be seen and examined at once, all the vaiious improvements 

 which have been made during the past year, so that all can avail them- 

 selves of the benefits to be derived from the experience and tried experi- 

 ments of their more distant as well as near neighbors, without being 

 compelled to travel from house to house, all over the county. 



The great object of associations of this kind, to express ourselves in 

 the fewest possible words, should be improvement. Agriculture as a 

 science has for its foundation experience, which should be the basis of 

 every practical operation upon the farm. The farmer learns by expe- 

 rience, if not by his own, by the experience of others, every principle 

 which enters into scientific farming operations. He learns that in order 

 to raise a perfect ear of corn, wheat or rye, he must 6ow or plant a 

 sound kernel of grain ; that it must be placed in a soil carefully pre- 

 pared by the plow, the hoe, or the drag ; that it must be exposed to a 

 proper degree of heat and moisture ; that it must have atmospheric air 

 and a proper proportion of oxygen and carbon ; that without such air, 

 where there is no oxygen, no grain can ever vegetate and grow ; that 

 without carbon a plant can only flower, and cannot bring forth its like 

 in grain ; and that without light a plant wiU certainly perish before it 

 arrives at maturity. These are facts which can be learned by simple 



