FOR PROMOTING AGRICULTURE 71 



A speedy end to the farmer's three banes, mort- 

 gages, dram-shops and a violent thirst for politics of 

 any sort. 



The editor of a Boston newspaper of the day said 

 of the event: "It was pleasant to witness on this occa- 

 sion the total absence of party feehngs and political 

 prejudices. The lion and the lamb lay down together. 

 Public utility was the order, and rural felicity, the 

 sentiment, of the day." The report read by Mr. 

 Lowell gives some hint of the antecedent considera- 

 tions governing the action of the trustees. It says: 



Those opposed to the plan of a cattle show may ask 

 why the society should waste its funds in a scheme, the 

 tendency of which may seem to them to be only to 

 multiply the days of festivity and idleness, already too 

 frequent, and to endanger the morals of the citizens by 

 collecting them together in a situation, and under 

 temptations, unfavorable to correctness and sobriety. 

 We are not unaware that such collections of people 

 may be subject to some evil. But when we recollect 

 upon how many less interesting occasions, and among 

 those some of questionable utility, the people are 

 called together, in which the principal effect upon some 

 would seem to be to sharpen still more the asperity of 

 party feelings, and to widen still further the breaches 

 in our community, it would appear to be a sufficient 

 apology to say, — let us unite in one object in which 

 division and irritable feelings can find no room for 

 exercise, in an assembly the sole end of which is the 

 promotion of the good of the whole community, and 

 the advancement and prosperity of the whole state. 



The report further says that cattle shows had their 

 beginning in Great Britain; that this example soon 

 reached the Continent, where its success, if not equally 

 great, had at least been considerable; that one induce- 



