154 



GENESEE FARMER. 



Oct. 1845 



very little coffee ; a sensible looking farnner opposite 

 me, said he could get no coffee ; I hailed a passing 

 maid, directing her to the poor cotfecless man, he 

 was promptly supplied; "how come you to call him 

 a poor man," asked my voisin, because, said I, the ap- 

 peal was to human sympathy; had shebeen the land- 

 lady, I would have called him rich, to touch her self 

 interest. 



Standing at the over-thronged gate at the fair 

 waiting for the human tide to subside, I was invited 

 to the olficcrs room, where I had t!ie pleasure to 

 greet our friends of the Cultivator and (lenesee P^ar- 

 mcr, Luther Tucker, and Doctor Lee: I left them 

 seated behind piles of diplomas and dollars; encum- 

 bered with pen, ink and paper, those et ceteras of 

 drudgery, which are the ofi'set to the honors of of- 

 fice. 



That which struck me first as I entered the fenc- 

 ed enclosure, was the green luxuriance of the timo- 

 thy and clover sward under my feet ; never again 

 will I deprecate the Siberian snows, the moist, rainy 

 atmosphere of Oneida county, since these give the 

 only sure pledge of those green pastures which the 

 sunny, fruit-bearing west, with its warm, calcareous 

 soil can only hope for, in a wet season. 



I found ail access to the hall of Flora and Pomo- 

 na nearly impracticable, from the dense mass of men 

 and women crowding its porta!, but in mercy to the 

 masses, every female seemed instinctively to have left 

 her bustle at home, as if she had a presentiment of 

 the great jam nt the great fair. 



Around tho circle were pens containing stock and 

 four-footed animals of the farm, we are told, to the 

 number of GSo, all of the im[)roved breeds ; here 

 were the stately short-horned Durham, the quiet 

 looking Devon, the short legged bull of Ilolderness, 

 cows, calves, sheep, hogs, and now promenading the 

 moving inner circle, the graceful horse. 



Here were costly buggies, and costlier carriages, 

 drawn by horses covered with plate mounted har- 

 ness, lilled to overflowing with the fairest and best 

 dressed of the niral fair. In vain did I look for that 

 badge of the farmers intrinsic CKlVmir, the neat, plain, 

 well painted lumber wagon, with its comfortable 

 spring seats, drawn by horses, whose spirit and hear- 

 ing needed no tinsel to set them off; would such an 

 unpretending show have been out of place at this 

 great farmer festival, where the intrinsic should al- 

 ways predominate over the extrinsic ? 



Here was a great display of agricultural imple- 

 ments; improved plows, harrows, straw cutters com- 

 bined with corn shellers, stoves and steamers, cheese 

 vats, and llussey's invaluable reaper, besides a thou- 

 sand and one other articles too numerous to name 

 here. But the greatest show was the everlasting 

 throng of the people of all ages, sexes and condition, 

 now congregated here to witness a festival, got up, 

 not in honor of a man, or to subserve the ends of a 

 party, but simply to advance the interests and ele- 

 vate the social standard of that single class of the 

 people which provides s'.istenance for all the rest. 



Dined with my kinsman 1>. F. B., then went six- 

 teen miles in the country to visit my " next of kin;" 

 returned next day in time to hear Mr. Quinc}T's ad- 

 dress. I kept my eyes on the spe&ker just long 

 enough to see that he suited the action to the word, 

 then it did me good to see how eagerly the surround- 

 ing mass of men and women "devoured up his dis- 

 course." His biblical allusions, in corroboration of 

 the high respectability of the farmers" calling, went 

 directly, not to their vanity, but to their spiritual 



life. When he humourously adverted to the semi- 

 larccny which had made all our Presidents, and 

 would-be-Presidents, farmers in turn, the smile on 

 every sunburnt face, told that the orator was ad- 

 dressing a sovereign people. 



I have heard some men deride the purposes of an 

 -Agricultural J"'air: one rich farmer who could not 

 spare the dollar, comforted himself by saying it was 

 all a speculation; one friend who had been rather bad- 

 ly lodged, disposed to be a little witty at the expense 

 of the citizens, observed, that a town set down in 

 the last census as on the decrease in population, 

 ought at this time to afford ample quarters for all. — = 

 It is perhaps gratuitous to say, that with such 

 men 'tis hard for me to sympathise. Of all arts, 

 that of agriculture is perhaps the most imperfectly 

 understood. Liebig, the prince of Aricultural Phj's- 

 iologists says, " that man knows not yet what height 

 and strength nature has allotted to plants;*' we are 

 acquainted only with the size they usually attain. — 

 Let us then make our agricultural fairs to the farm- 

 er, what the exhibition of new inventions and im- 

 proved machinery are to the mechanist, both the 

 stimulous and the guide towards that perfection 

 which man has not yet attained. S. W. 



TP]STS OF A THRIVING POPULATIOX. 



Charles Smith, in his Tracts on the Corn Trade, 

 estimated the population of England and Wales in 

 1760, at 6,000,000, which is sufficiently near the 

 truth for our present inquiry. The entire consump- 

 tion of grain at that time, he estimated to be 7,566,- 

 350 quarters ; of which 3,750,000 quarters were 

 wheat, and of the remainder, 1,026,125 consisted of 

 barley, 999,000 of rye, and 1,791,225 of oats. 



The change which has taken place in the species 

 of grain used for bread in England since the period 

 referred to by Charles Smith, is notorious. Rye has 

 almost entirely ceased to be employed. The same 

 remark might almost be applied to barley ; and oat- 

 meal and oat cake are not consumed to any thing 

 like the same extent as in the previous century. — 

 Almost every individual now uses wheaten bread ; 

 and in some of our manufacturing towns, the infe- 

 rior sorts even of wheaten flour have been rejected 

 by all ej.cept the most indigent classes. 



The total average produce of grain in England 

 and Wales, has been estimated within the last ten 

 years, at 29,450,000 quarters ; of which 12,450,000 

 quarters consist of -wheat, (M'Culloch's " Statis- 

 tics of the British Empire," i. 529.) It would thus 

 appear, that whilst the population of England and 

 Wales has doubled, the consumption of wheat, as 

 well as of other grains, has nearly quadrupled : for 

 the home producer is unable to supply the demand 

 of the consumers, and an annual average of at least 

 500,000 quarters of wheat may be added to the total 

 quantity produced at home, on account of foreign 

 importations. 



Test hi/ Ihilchcr's meat.^-ln a similar manner, in 

 regard to butcher's meat : if we take the market of 

 the metropolis, we shall find that the number of cat- 

 tle and sheep annuall}^ sold at Smithfield, has doub- 

 led within the last century, whilst the weight 

 of the carcasses has also more than doubled 

 in that interval. In the early part of the last centu- 

 ry, 1710, according to an estimate made by Dr. 

 Davenant, the nett weight of the cattle sold at Smith- 

 field, averaged not more than 370 pounds, whilst 

 calves averaged about 50 pounds, and sheep 28 

 pounds. In 1800, the nett weight of cattle was es- 



