32 



following a formal and extended festival was held with 

 of 69 oxen drawing a plow held by the oldest man in the county, a 

 band of music, the society bearing appropriate ensigns, each member 

 decorated with a badge of two heads of wheat in his hat, and the 

 officers three heads secured by a green ribbon." Mr. Watson as pres- 

 ident delivered the address and awarded the premiums which amount- 

 ed to seventy dollars only. 



At the next exhibition in 1812 the premiums were $208. It seems 

 now strange, though illustrative of the conservative tendency of 

 human nature, and distrust of new things, that " valuable premiums 

 were offered for articles of domestic industry ; the da} 7 arrived ; a 

 large room was prepared ; many superior articles of domestic manu- 

 facture, especially woollen and linen, were exhibited ; but no female 

 appeared to claim the premiums. Native timidity and the fear of 

 ridicule restrained them. No one dared to be the first to support the 

 new project." How did the original mind, so full of resources, of 

 Mr. Watson surmount the difficulty? "I left the hall," he says, 

 " and with no small difficulty prevailed on my good wife to accom- 

 pany me to the house of exhibition. I then despatched messengers 

 to the ladies of the village announcing that she waited for them at 

 the cloth show. They hastened out. The farmers' wives and daugh- 

 ter^, who were secretly watching the movement of the waters, also 

 sallied forth, and the hall was speedily filled with female spectators 

 and candidates for premiums." 



I have thus dwelt more at length upon the circumstances of the 

 birth of the Berkshire "cattle show" than might seem necessary, 

 not because it presents a curious parallel with the first cattle show 

 on. Plymouth Rock, but because the results of both present such 

 striking changes and contrasts. The little one has become ten thous- 

 and. The grain of mustard seed overshadows the land. I verily 

 believe that the social influences, the associate power, the joint sym- 

 pathies and desires and the educational wants, aye, and the public 

 influence on public men, of the agricultural societies which have fol- 

 lowed this little show of two forlorn, imported sheep under the elm 

 at Pittsfield, were moving forces without which the People, the Great 

 Creators would never have blown the breath of life into the Board of 

 Agriculture and the Agricultural College. If geese saved Rome why 

 should not two sheep save agricultural education? But it is not the 

 trifle, as such which saves, and that bv accident as in the case of 



