1868. 



NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



189 



depredation. Your secretary would advise 

 that the society address a memorial to the 

 General Court, asking for a repeal of all laws 

 that protect the American robin, or their 

 amendment so far at least as to allow individ- 

 als to shoot them upon their own premises." 



IMMORALITY AT AG'L FAIRS. 

 There was much complaint last fall of the 

 gambling, pool-selling, drinking and other im- 

 moral and vicious practices which were per- 

 mitted at and about the agricultural fairs in 

 many parts of the country. We are glad to 

 see that something beside expressing regret for 

 these vicious attendants of our County and 

 State Shows is likely to be done, in one county 

 at least. The action of the grand jury of 

 Dutchess County, N. Y., in presenting the fol- 

 lowing indictment, will, we hope, inspire the 

 leading men in other places with courage 

 enough to attempt a reform in this respect. 



"We, the Grand Jury of the County of Dutchess, 

 empanelled and sworn at the present term of the 

 Court of Oyer and Tei-miner for said county, do 

 present that the allowance of gambling and liquor 

 selling at stands and in booths around the grounds 

 where the Fair of the Dutchess County Agricul- 

 tural Society is held, is productive of such vicious 

 and criminal practices as to call for enegetic inter- 

 ference by the public authoi'ities of the county. 

 That the owners or occupants of the fair grounds, 

 and the land adjoining them, have for several years 

 been accustomed to letting such ground during the 

 fair to unknown and irresponsible persons from 

 distant places, who, at the stands and in the booths 

 erected thereon, have carried on an unrestricted 

 sale of intoxicating liquors, together with gam- 

 bling and other infamous practices, which have 

 grown from bad to worse, until they have become 

 so criminal and shameless (as at our last County 

 Fair) that we are surprised that no citizen, among 

 the thousands present, could be found to cause the 

 arrest of the guilty parties. 



These and other immoral and vicious practices 

 at and about said fair, have been the cause of 

 drawing thither a crowd of vile and abandoned 

 characters from our own and other counties, whose 

 presence there has rendered life and property 

 practically unprotected. So great has this evil 

 grown that our County Fair, with its attendants, 

 has become a disgrace to our county and a public 

 nuisance, especially to all decent and law-abiding 

 citizens. The commencement of our County Fair 

 is but the inauguration for four or five days of a 

 carnival of vice and crime and lawlessness, of so 

 shameless and outrageous a character as to dis- 

 grace even a semi-civilized community. We re- 

 gret that the want of evidence as to the identity of 

 the guilty parties, and of the complicity with them 

 of other well-known parties, prevents us from pre- 

 senting them for trial by indictment, and we, 

 therefore, take this method of expressing our con- 

 demnation of the practices alluded to, and of cen- 

 suring, in the severest possiljle terms, those par- 

 ties residing in our own county, who aid and abet 

 them, and who, for the purpose of gain, let the fair 

 grounds and the premises about them for the pur- 

 pose alluded to. We are compelled, by the solemn 

 obligation of the oaths that we have taken, to make 

 this presentment, and we respectfully ask that it 

 may be entered on the minutes of the court"- 



A "WATER FOUNTAIN FOR POULTRY. 



The above is a somewhat faulty representa- 

 tion of a contrivance for supplying poultry with 

 water on a principle much like that on which the 

 inkstand on the desk before us operates. The 

 cut is intended to represent a common jug set 

 in a pan or dish a trifle larger in circumfer- 

 ence than the jug. The jug is filled or partly 

 filled with water, and tightly corked. A small 

 perforation is made in the bottom of the jug, 

 through which the water gradually flows into 

 the dish or pan in which it is placed, so as to 

 secure a fresh and constant supply for the 

 poultry. The same object may be obtained 

 by the use of a glass bottle filled with water 

 and supported in an erect position, with the 

 neck or nozzle near the bottom of a dish or 

 trough, beneath the surface of the water. 



Grape Rot. — From a careful examination 

 of the history of grape culture from the earli- 

 est ages, together with the analysis of the best 

 grape soils, I am convinced that the disease 

 has its remote cause in a want of certain nat- 

 ural combinations of the elements of the soil 

 and subsoil, more or less influenced by meteor- 

 ological phenomena and other causes referred 

 to. 



In all countries where volcanic deposits pre- 

 dominate in the soil, the grape is healthy. 

 Now, by chemical analysis, we can certainly 

 ascertain the components of the soil, and by 

 composting manures, supply, in a great meas- 

 ure any deficiency that may exist — yet we can 

 no more make a soil as it is in the volcanic dis- 

 tricts direct from Nature's great laboratory, 

 than we can take charcoal and mould a dia- 

 mond, or form the gossamer fibre of the cotton 

 plant. We may greatly simulate Nature — and 

 in so much as we do, we will in the same pro- 

 portion diminish the disease in any district, 

 making all due allowance for unhealthy vines 

 and meteorological influences, which may one 



