130 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



please." These societies are cited by all opposed to trotting at 

 fairs, as showing the success attained without resorting to horse 

 races to draw a crowd ; — but I am persuaded their success is due 

 to other causes quite as much as to the absence of trials of speed. 

 Nor must it be forgotten that in the State of New York, there are 

 more than two hundred and fifty driving associations and race 

 courses, with all their questionable accompaniments ; and that in 

 connection with the exhibition of this single society in Massachu- 

 setts, I saw more drunkenness and fighting than I ever saw in 

 Maine at all the fairs I have ever attended in all my life. It is not 

 true that the trials of speed of horses embodies all the evils in 

 connection with our system of agricultural exhibitions ; there are 

 others from which we in Maine are happily free ; and in compari- 

 son with which the well conducted race at a county fair can but be 

 regarded a legitimate pastime. 



Now, recognizing the need for pure amusements for the people 

 and the value of speed as an element worthy of encouragement — 

 whetlier is it better, for our agricultural societies to banish trials 

 of speed from their exhibitions, leaving it to driving associations 

 and jockey clubs with all the iniquitous systems with which they 

 clothe it ; or take it into their own hands, keep it under their own 

 control, offer reasonable premiums for its encouragement, allow no 

 betting or gambling in connection with it, and, recognizing it as 

 legitimate, by their good management keep it so ? In what com- 

 munity is society better and purer : — that in which an agricultural 

 society allows and controls trials of speed — as does yours in this 

 place [Topsham] — or that where such a society gives it over com- 

 pletely to gambling horse men who maintain their private club 

 and race course, and with it all the evils upon which it feeds ? 

 And while these societies boast of paying no premiums for trotting, 

 and draws its garments about it fur fear of impure contact, is it 

 not true that illegal racing, gambling, betting, and drunkenness 

 are at their flood tide in their very midst? Of course we as a 

 Board of control, have nothing whatever to do with societies not 

 receiving the aid of the State — but as we all have at heart the 

 good of all its agencies for the improvement of our agriculture — 

 I can hardly refrain from saying that at the last State fair, no 

 feature was so disgraceful in connection with its entire manage- 

 ment, as the countenance which it gave to open and public bet- 

 ting, before all spectators, upon the races for which it offered 

 premiums — and to express the hearty contempt I have for such a 



