APPENDIX. v 



Swine were few in number, but good in quality. The show of 

 poultry was very superior ; nearly every variety was represented, 

 and showed careful breeding. The display of agricultural imple- 

 ments was quite extensive. The horse department was said to be 

 on a par with the other departments. The flower and domestic 

 departments were alike creditable to the taste and industry of the 

 good ladies of Middlesex. Fruits and vegetables were abundantly 

 displayed, and of a wonderful quality ; and I venture to say the 

 display has never been excelled in Massachusetts. 



The annual dinner took place on the last day, in the spacious 

 dining-hall of the society's building on the grounds. The tables 

 were plentifully supplied, around which were gathered the beauty 

 and manliness of Old Middlesex. After feasting the inner man, 

 the noble and whole-souled president of the society, John Cum- 

 mings, Jr., began the " feast of reason " by bestowing appropriate 

 congratulations and praises upon the farmers of Middlesex for the 

 present success and welfare of the society, and offering the strongest 

 encouragements for the future. Excellent addresses were then 

 made by the Hon. Marshall P. Wilder and Ralph Waldo Emerson, 

 fresh from the mountains and plains of California, and by other 

 well-known friends of the agricultural interest in Middlesex. 



The cheering words and presence on this occasion of Mr. Emer- 

 son, whose interest in agriculture has made his name as well known 

 to the farmers of Middlesex as his refined and philosophical teach- 

 ings have familiarized him with the best thinkers of the world, 

 recalled to mind those admirable lines in his poem Musketaquid, 

 descriptive of the dwellers in the Valley of the Concord, with which 

 I close this report of the exhibition of 1871 : — 



" Beneath low hills, in the broad interval 

 Through which at will our Indian rivulet 

 Winds mindful still of sannup and of squaw 

 Whose pipe and arrow oft the plough unburies; 

 Here, in pine houses, built of new-fallen trees, 

 Supplanters of the tribe, the farmers dwell. 

 Traveller, to thee perchance, a tedious road, 

 Or, it may be, a picture ; to these men 

 The landscape is an armory of powers, 

 Which, one by one, they know to draw and use: 

 They harness beast, bird, insect, to their work; 

 They prove the virtues of each bed of rock, 

 And, like the chemist, 'mid his loaded jars, 

 Draw from each stratum its adapted use 

 To drug their crops or weapon their arts withal. 

 They turn the frost upon their chemic heap ; 

 They set the wind to winnow pulse and grain; 

 They thank the spring-flood for its fertile slime, 



