VERMONT AGRICULTURAL, REPORT. 



AN IDEAL AGRICULTURAL FAIR. 



ADDRESS DKUVERED BY E. P. MAYO AT A FARMERS' INSTITUTION. 



I have been invited by your worthy Secretary to visit the 

 Green Mountain State and tell of a fair held in the State of 

 Maine, the State that abounds in fairs, in the hope that the good 

 State of Vermont would take courage and have one modern 

 State Fair in which every part of the commonwealth would have 

 a share and be interested in its success. The success of the 

 Central Maine Fair, of which I am to speak, is all the more re- 

 markable when it is known that it sprang up when there were al- 

 ready two old and thoroughly established exhibitions in the State, 

 which would seem to encourage the people of this State in the 

 belief that there is always room for one more — provided it is a 

 good one, and thoroughly meets the wants of the people. 



Agricultural fairs have been held in this country for nearly 

 TOO years. The first was held in Pittsfield, Mass., in 1810, it 

 having been inaugurated and practically operated under the pat- 

 ronage and encouragement of Elkanah Watson, a retired Albany, 

 New York, merchant, who bought a large farm in the Berkshire 

 Hills, where he retired to spend his closing days, but he was 

 not satisfied to be simply a sojourner in the land, but seeing the 

 need of it he desired to put agriculture on a better basis, and he 

 could think of no better way to encourage the small farmers in 

 that section to engage in agriculture and live stock industry on a 

 wider plane than to inaugurate an agricultural fair, and it will 

 interest all to know that the fair was a success from the start, 

 and was the means of awakening an interest that never has died 

 down in everything that pertains to agriculture in its widest sense. 

 Since then there have been fairs and fairs, and there are over 50 

 held annually in the Pine Tree State, but notwithstanding this 

 plethoric condition the feeling came to the good people of the 

 far famed Kennebec valley, located in the central portion of the 

 State, that they wanted and should have a modern and a model 

 fair of their own. This feeling seemed to come to a large num- 

 ber of people, whose material interest center around the growing 

 young city of Waterville, situated about equally distant from 

 Lewiston and Bangor, where large State Fairs have been in 



