188 MONTHLY JOLfR?JAL OF AGRICULTURE. 



character of those in attendance, and whether they constitute the hone and sinew 



the staple of the agricultural community of the State ; and whether the animals 

 and other things produced go to show that the fanners generally have taken 

 hold and embarked heartily in the cause, with a conviction of the utility of these 

 shows and with a determination to excel in the various branches of industry in 

 which their capital is embarked and on which their labor is bestowed. 



Contemplating the Auburn exhibition in this light, the question is, whether it 

 demonstrated a general and praiseworthy spirit of rivalry, and a marked advance 

 in a way to assure us of continued and general melioration of agricultural life 

 and pursuits. In the first place, it is a source of unfeigned pleasure to testify 

 that in the most important department, agricultural implements, there were 

 abundant proofs of zeal and ingenuity on the part of those who devote their o-e- 

 nius and labors to these objects — which we the more readily denominate as the 

 most important, because some of them, as the plow and the harrow, lie at the 

 bottom, and serve, as it were, as the entering wedge to all agricultural opera- 

 tions ; and all of them are designed to achieve that great desideratum in our 

 country — economy of labor. In this branch of the exhibition there was most 

 satisfactory evidence that the mind is at work, and that we may hope to realize 

 for Agriculture some degree of that improvement which has been effected in the 

 vehicles and machinery appropriated to commerce, manufactures, and other arts 

 and trades. But even these improvements have been stricken out, not so much 

 by any action of the mind within the circle of practical farmers, as by the stimu- 

 lus which the wants of Agriculture have applied to the mind of the mechanic — 

 of men who live in nearer communion and rivalry with each other, and who 

 have been brought, by encouraging influences, to think — yes, in a word, to think. 

 But look again over the field for proofs of improvement in the race of domestic 

 animals, and especially of cattle, so important in the agricultural economy of the 

 State of New- York— emphatically a butter, a cheese, and a beef-growing coun- 

 try ! After using every persuasive to prevail on the farmers of the country to 

 bring forward their bulls, and cows, and heifers, of the country breed — offering, 

 year after year, the same premiums as for the various races of imported stock — 

 what is the result ? What was the number of competitors ? and what were the 

 signs of bulls of better form, and cows of deeper milking properties, or heifers 

 of fairer promise, than might have been gathered up twenty years ago in any five 

 miles square in any part of the State ? Let it not be said — we sincerely wish it 

 could be said — that improvement has been pushed to the ne plus ultra m that de- 

 partment. Were that true, how should we account for the recommendation of the 

 Committee that these premiums be hereafter withdrawn, on the ground that the 

 prizes are worth more than the animals to which they are awarded ? Whai can 

 be the influence under which the farmers of the State generally hold back from 

 this area of honorable and praiseworthy rivalry 1 Is it that they indulge in an 

 unworthy, or a well-founded suspicion of trickery and management in the bc- 

 stowment of tlie premiums ? or that they are restrained by a puerile shame to 

 exhibit their best in the same field with imported animals which have been 

 carried to the highest point of improvement that wealth and skill in animal 

 breeding and physiology can raise them ? Of the milch cows of " country breed," 

 it might be well to be silent, on the score that the least said is the soonest mend- 

 ed, and leaves less chance of being gored. Still we may venture to wonder why it 

 was that the first premium was given to tlie mother of " three <it'i«" calves ! Proli- 

 ticncss in the hog is a quality to be promoted, but even in that unclean beast it has 



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