No. 63.] 355 



crops — the show of the finest and most perfect specimens of the ani- 

 mal creation — the exhibition of the ingenuity of the country in all 

 the mechanical implements of husbandry — all vegetable productions 

 that eminently excel, including the grains, the fruits and the flowers 

 — the beautiful productions of the loom, the needle, and the thousand 

 triumphs of mind over matter; we say if all this display of the works 

 of man and a higher power is not praiseworthy, and calculated to im- 

 prove the mind and to impress the heart with gratitude to Him who 

 conceived and created these paragons of excellence — then is the glo- 

 rious sky and all its multitude of constellations a mere " congrega- 

 tion of pestilential vapors." We cannot conceive a case in which 

 the searcher after truth and knowledge may more improve his under- 

 standing and gain new ideas for his future practice and improvement, 

 and no one can be so stupid and careless as not to be moved by cu- 

 riosity and admiration; two exertions of the faculties which will not 

 at any rate prejudice his morals. 



Opinions are debateable things, and facts are not very safely arrived 

 at by inquiring minds, except by collision with contrary views. As 

 man is gregarious, it is well he should be brought in approximation 

 with his fellows; and how and when can it be more judiciously per- 

 fected than where men of his own craft " most do congregate ?" 



It is argued by some, that all societies and associations are wrong, 

 and have a deleterious effect upon human society; that it renders 

 them clownish^ and begets an esprit du corps that narrows the mind 

 and shrivels up the universal genius of man. It may be so in a 

 measure, but we must take the world as it is; and there cannot be 

 any good reason assigned why the Farmer should not have the 

 advantage, pecuniary and honorary, that may grow out of a course 

 found beneficial by all the other classes. 



The writer, during the two or three years past, has had the good 

 fortune to attend various agricultural fairs in this State; and the two 

 last State Fairs, particularly at Syracuse and Albany, are marked 

 trees and beacons of light in his memory. The Fair at Albany, in 

 September last, was a most extensive and magnificent display. It 

 seemed the World''s Farmer''s Museum collected in the Coliseum of 

 the Empire State; and two hundred miles travel was araply compen- 

 sated by this wonderful exhibition, and so we think thousands will 

 respond who were there congregated. It was truly a feast of fat 

 things; and no one was present at this show, who glories in the title 

 of tiller of the soil, but must have left it a wiser and a better man, 

 and felt ennobled in the dignity of his calling. 



Intimately connected with agricultural associations is the Agricul- 

 tural Press; and however sneeringly the over-wise, self-sufficient and 

 narrow-minded may decry " Book Farming," the insinuation is so 

 flimsy and preposterous that no liberal-minded and inquiring man will 

 tolerate it for an instant. Is it to be presumed that any one is per- 

 fect? that he is all wise and beyond the power of increasing his know- 

 ledge? Is the experience of the long life of an individual endowed 

 with an acute and discerning mind, worth nothing, when a column of 

 ordinary print can convey the experience of years on a particular 



