OXFORD COUNTY SOCIETY. 43 



In giving expression to the impressions we retain concerning all 

 we saw, should we fail in any case to render exact justice, we hope 

 the interested reader will extend to us the broadest charity, in con- 

 sideration that our notes were made in one short day ; and that one 

 charged with an unfortunate mixture of the work assigned to two 

 days of the exhibition. 



The officers of this Society, in their circular for the year, offered 

 a list of cash premiums amounting to about Ij^SSO — about $30 more 

 than the list of the previous year. 



Their code of general rules and regulations, is very like what we 

 have met, founded on experience, and applicable to the management 

 of much larger exhibitions than this. 



Our Conclusions.. 



This Show, as an index of what Oxford is in her agricultural re- 

 sources — of what her population is as an intelligent, laborious, pro- 

 ducing people, probably fell much below what it should have been. 

 The people themselves assembled, were to us the most interesting 

 feature of the exhibition. The county of Oxford has furnished great 

 numbers of sturdy men and noble women to people the newer coun- 

 ties of Piscataquis and Aroostook, and has been decimated to swell 

 the western tide of emigration. Without a personal acquaintance in 

 any of her towns, the inference is fair, that nearly all her present 

 population is native on the soil. 



At the late Mechanics' Exhibition, in Boston, a great many men 

 and women were weighed by the exhibitors of scales. We saw the 

 figures giving the average weight of more than twenty thousand 

 persons. The same was done at the State Fair at Portland, holden 

 at the same time. The average weight of men and women was found 

 at Portland to exceed that at Boston by several pounds. At Paris, 

 we remarked to our friend that Howe's scales here, would tell a story 

 of physical development that would be worth more to the world than 

 all other truths that could be written of Oxford and her products, 

 for the year 1860. 



The first end to be answered by the labor of the farmer, like all 

 other labor, is to secure the means of living — the support and con- 

 tinuance of life itself. " Regarding existence as deriving its value 



