154 THE FARMER AT HOME. 



The most important fairs, in this country, are those for the exhi- 

 bition of agricultural productions and of specimens of skill in the 

 mechanic arts, and in domestic economy. They are intended not so 

 much for selling the articles produced, as for comparing them together, 

 to see who, in his own efforts, has been most successful. The motive 

 for such comparison is to obtain premiums or testimonials for cases of 

 rare excellence in the rearing of animals, in the products of the farm 

 and garden, and in whatever is manufactured, whether in the family 

 or the workshop. The moral influence of agricultural fairs especially 

 is of the first importance. By attending them, each one of our farm- 

 ers is stimulated to embark in all experiments made by others, which 

 have been found advantageous. Each witnesses the perfection which 

 may be attained in the improvement of farm animals, whether in 

 cattle, horses, swine, sheep, and even poultry ; and is enabled to note 

 the profit arising from them, above what is experienced where such 

 improvement has not been made. Each wit^sses the saving of labor 

 in the use of the best constructed agricultural implements, and becomes 

 resolved to adopt them. And each, without cost to himself, is en- 

 abled to avail himself of all that his more enterprising brethren have 

 achieved by a free use of capital, and a long period of study and per- 

 severing labor. In a word, each becomes possessed of what all others 

 know without paying for it. 



FALCON. A bird of prey, once much esteemed as an auxiliary 

 of the savage arts of man, in destroying the feathered race. Falcons 

 were formerly tamed and trained, just as pointer-dogs are at present 

 trained ; and hawking or falconry, was, to a certain class of minds, 

 as interesting as shooting or hunting is to the same class in our days. 

 They are carnivorous, the beak hooked, and the head covered with 

 feathers, and the legs and feet scaly. 



FALLOW. A term applied to land which is left uncultivated 

 for one or more years, with a view to exterminate weeds, and to 

 enable it to fix those atmospherical elements which promote vegetable 

 growth, and which are exhausted by repeated crops of the same kind, 

 though the same effect is produced by the rotation of a crop for man, 

 and a crop for beasts. 



FALLOW-DEER. No two animals can be more nearly allied 

 than the stag and the fallow-deer ; and yet no two animals keep 

 more distinct, or avoid each other with more fixed animosity. They 

 are never seen to herd in the same place ; it is even rare, unless they 

 have been transported thither, to find fallow-deer in a country where 

 stags are numerous. They seem to be of a nature less robust and less 

 savage than the stag ; they are found but rarely wild in the forests, 

 and are bred up in parks, where they are, as it were, half domestic. 



England is the country of Europe where they most abound ; and 

 there their flesh, which dogs are observed to prefer to that of all other 

 animals, is held in no small estimation. It seems to be an animal 



