REPORTS OF COMMITTEES. 123 



hundred persons, from which position the trotting, tho eques- 

 trian performance#by the ladies, the foot-races, the ploughing, 

 drawing, and all other out-of-door exercises could be seen. So, 

 from this spot, was one of the loveliest panoramas ever presented 

 to the eye. Here the Pontoosuc comes ambling along through 

 the narrow valleys, turning wheels and watering meadows as it 

 flows, and giving examples of animated indvistry in its babbling- 

 course. There flows the Housatonic, enlarged and strengthened 

 by the contributions of the Pontoosuc, and swelling out into 

 the magnitude of a river, gladdening the manufacturer's as well 

 as the farmer's hopes, and fertilizing the waiting intervals, 

 green slopes and shady banks, as it winds along. Yonder are 

 the hills on every side. On the north, old Greylock lifts its 

 hoary head, still venerable and august, but young as when the 

 oldest saw it first, dashing the battling elements from its sides, 

 as the lion shakes the night drops from his impervious mane. 

 There are the hills which circumscribe and mark out the am_ 

 phitheatre of which these grounds 'are the centre — their sides 

 covered with the deep forest, or dotted with rock maples, black 

 birch, or groups of hemlock, perhaps the most beautiful ever- 

 green of our climate, as well as among the most symmetrical 

 and elegant of trees. Down the sides of tbcse " crystal hills " 

 pour limpid streams, where sheep and milch cows slake their 

 thirst, and, checked in their course, with gathered strength 

 they turn the wheels that grind the corn, or saw the logs that 

 they have nourished many years. And, autumn frosts having 

 touched with icy fingers the trembling leaves, they gleamed in 

 colors of every hue, golden and scarlet, purple and orange, each 

 vieing in brilliancy Avitli the other, and forming a richness of 

 shade and coloring never imitated by man, and probably une- 

 qualled in any other clime. Nearer, shot up the white spires of 

 the village churches, while the rich tones of a bell, or the busy 

 hum of industry, occasionally met the ear. Such is but a feeble 

 portraiture of tlie spot selected by our Berkshire friends, upon 

 which annually to gather, with their wives and children, and 

 keep The Farmer^ s Festival. A better selection we have never 

 seen, nor a wiser disposition of all the adjuncts which must sur- 

 round it. 



As will be seen above, this exhibition made the forty-fifth of 

 this time-honored and flourishing society — a society which has 



