4 MAINE STATE SOCIETY. 



The Editor of the New England Farmer, whose presence we 

 regarded as a cheerful acquisition to the company assembled, thus 

 facetiously describes the unfavorable turn of the weather : 



"The exhibition was to have continued through four days, but 

 the threatening aspect of the weather on Tuesday resolved itself into 

 a decided storm on Wednesday, and arrested its further progress. 

 There was no 'make-believe' about it, for the rains descended, the 

 winds blew, and the floods came, and every living thing 'caught the 

 dumps' at once. The cattle would not low, the cocks would not 

 crow, nor the horses go — it was an effectual damper ^11 round. The 

 auctioneers grew hoarse while the icy rain drizzled down their necks, 

 and soon began to pack up. their traps ; the jockeys lost all their 

 grit, and the boldest of them didn't believe there was a horse on the 

 ground that could trot a mile in ten minutes ; the men suddenly 

 came to the conclusion that 'discretion is the better part of valor,' 

 and departed to get up a flame within themselves, or find one at 

 their hotels. There was a regular stampede among the women, 

 and the fields, so lately sparkling with feminine beauty and grace, 

 became damp, dull and despondent, and the winds and rain had it 

 pretty much to themselves. But the exhibition was not a failure 

 after all, for the interruption which it experienced showed how much 

 the people regard and cherish the festival. It was not a failure, 

 either, because what goes to make up* an exhibition teas there, al- 

 though the people were prevented from seeing it. Some 1,000 

 cattle, 500 horses, 400 sheep, swine, poultry, bees and honey, grains 

 and vegetables, fruits and flowers, household manufactures, paintings 

 and pictures, and a respectable collection of farm implements and 

 machines, were presented to be examined. Then there were the 

 usual arrangements for plowing, drawing, and the exhibition of 

 horses." 



The Trustees in their annual report to the Secretary, referring 

 to the exhibition and its effect on the agricultural interests of the 

 State, say: 



" It may not be out of place for us to say that the experience of 

 the past year has proved, in a marked degree, the value to agriculture 

 of the efforts of this Society. The intrinsic importance of these 

 efforts are not by any means to be summed up in the various induce- 

 ments held out by the premiums offered to competitors, for these 



