178 BOARD OF AGRICULTUKE. 



mamifatture, a stiuiulant to sonius; being groat storehouses of instruc- 

 tion, veritable universities of industry. 



The fairs of Europe, where they originated, had but little significance, 

 being either periodical markets of greater or lesser magnitude, or holiday 

 occasions of mirth and pleasure. 



Tlie original Amorcan conception embodied all these and went a 

 step forward by embracing and encouraging the development of the 

 products of the soil and the improvement of stock. 



The American idea was an expansive one and not to be hedged about 

 by a contracted sphere. Reaching out from the boundaries of agriculture 

 it took in the culinary and every department of women's handiwork, the 

 mill and the factory. Thence forward to the domain of invention and 

 architecture, ■ literature and art, still extending its influence and help- 

 fiUness imtil every department of skill within the realm of human in- 

 genuity had been compassed. 



From these improved conditions have sprung the institutes and col- 

 leges of agi'iculture and filled them and the colleges of art and literature 

 with intelligent young men and women who are destined to enlighten 

 and rule the nation, if not the world. 



From these county fairs, over which pessimists liave 'pronounced 

 learned elegies, each succeeding season for the last forty years, have been 

 evolved State and national exhibitions and international expositions, 

 culminating in our own country, where Avill be gathered from every laud 

 the wonders of nature, relics of prehistoric times, the architecture of 

 the ages, the greatest works of the greatest masters in art and literature, 

 the skill and invention of nations, and the processes of development from 

 the remotest period to the living present, in the presence of which Avill 

 stand the wise men of the world in utter amazement as they contemplate 

 the wonders of the age in which we have been permitted to live. All 

 conceived and executed for the study and education of the world. The 

 tall oaks which "from little acrons grow" are of great development, but 

 not to be compared in magnitude with this exposition in its evolution 

 from the little New York fair instituted by Elkanah Watson eighty-nine 

 years ago. 



Fairs, not ])eing dividend paying institutions as a rule, are free from 

 the intrigues of designing and avaricious men, who would conduct them 

 for their own selfish purposes. But in most communities there are to 

 be found men, whose ideas are on a par with their appetites, who get 

 into the management. They, at once, discover the decadence of the fair 

 because of its morality and temperance and want to eliminate what they 

 term "Sundaj'-school methods" and substitute the saloon and gambling 

 house, with all their attending iniquity, and the object of the fairs 

 diverted from the paths of usefulness into intemperance and excess, and 

 degenerated in proportion to the extent of such management. 



Permit me to digress far enough to sav tliat the last State exhibition 



