454 Benefits of Agricultural Fairs. [October, 



tliousands, wlio liave elaborated and made known their experience 

 to tlie world, througli Agricultural Papers, contributing their ex- 

 periments to the general stock of information (which at the best is 

 made up of atoms) garnered together, — a rich legacy of fiicts, from 

 which the principles of Truth shall be deduced by the hand of the 

 future historian. All this has been done quietly. The silent step 

 of agricultural progress has not been noted by the world — as it 

 should have been — for the simple reason that it took time to nurture 

 in man the high obligation he owed to his Maker, his country and 

 himself, to so use and develop that which was intrusted to his hand, 

 that it might be improved, and the true design of our Creator car- 

 ried out. 



And what is an Agricultural Fair? Is it a place where the most 

 superior specimens of agricultural products arc exhibited to the 

 view of the visitors? What then? is that all the object, the aim, 

 the end to be accomplished ? If so, let them go by the board. — 

 But a higher object is to be accomplished — has been, and will con- 

 continue to be — the interchange of thought among those who have 

 produced the articles on exhibition. It is in this light that Agri- 

 cultural Fairs are accomplishing the grand results which will con- 

 tinue to rank us as a practical, farming progressive people. It is 

 not enough that we should see the superior crop of grain, etc., but 

 we should have the man with us, that we may know by what pro- 

 cess he produced it, so that his co-laborers may know and realize 

 the facts which are brought before them in their most practical form. 

 It is not enough that we see fat cattle, but that we see the husband- 

 man who produced them, that our less fortunate husbandmen may, 

 by inqulryand observation, be aroused to the necessity of doing like- 

 wise — so that the object of the Fair may be the means of perpetu- 

 ating the progressive spirit of political and rural economy. 



Fairs, rightly conducted, are groat stimulants to good and thorough 

 cultivation of the soil. Nothing is so well calculated to create as 

 healthy a feeling, or develop so thoroughly the true dignity of 

 Nature's noblemen as this theater, where all may meet in the exhibi- 

 tion of the arts of peace and usefulness : where those who have 

 failed to realize their fond anticipations from the exhibition of their 

 products, rejoice in the success of their neighbors. It is this fea- 

 ture which endears them to all good men who know the wants of 

 QUr fttrmerg, aftd who have, from the earliest stage of existence, 



