xxviii APPENDIX. 



two and three years olds. Butter, cheese, vegetables, fancy work, and 

 domestic manufactures, were creditably represented ; but the stock 

 department, as a whole, both of horses and cattle, was decidedly inferior. 



Tlie show of men and women, of active, inquiring, interested s^iectators, . 

 was deplorably small. And, though it was my pleasure to meet many 

 wide-awake, intelhgent farmers of Eastern Hampden, yet I could not 

 avoid the conviction that there was, in the section over which that society 

 operates, a great lack of interest in the aims and objects for which the 

 society was organized ; and that if the Hampden East Society would 

 make the best, nay, the legitimate nse of the bounty of the State, great 

 .exertion should be made to arouse that agricultui'al community to the 

 importance and necessity of making a better use of their opportunities. 



A good audience of the citizens of Palmer assembled in one of the 

 village churches, and listened to an address of Mr. Blair, one of the 

 estimable citizens of that town. Levi Stockbridge. 



BERKSHIRE. 



The annual exhibition of the Berkshire Society was held at Pitts- 

 field, on the 4th, 5th, and 6th of October, and was highly successful. 

 The interest which belongs to this long-established society, one of the 

 oldest in the country, is such as to render it a special object of atten- 

 tion. And it is gratifying to know that its prosperity and vigor 

 are not in any way diminishing. The record which it possesses is of 

 unusual value. Its founders and early patron^ were men Avho had 

 large comprehension of the importance of agriculture, and applied intel- 

 ligence and industry to their labor on the land. The attitude assumed 

 by them toward all matters of public importance, and their understand- 

 ing of the wants of our country which the farmer could supply, render 

 their written opinions, as found in the first manuscripts of the associa- 

 tion, suggestive and valuable. It is somewhat remarkable that this zeal 

 and industry, so worthy of all imitation, in furnishing contributions to 

 the agricultural literature of the country should not be imitated by 

 those who now conduct the affairs of the society. Berkshire is one of 

 the most interesting agricultural sections of our State. Its farming is 

 varied and successful ; and it is to be hoped that for the future some 

 more tliorough record of the transactions of the society, and of the 

 modes of agriculture which it is called upon to encourage, will be 

 secured and published. 



The entries at the exhibition, in all its branches, were sufficiently 

 large. Some of the crops it may be well to enumerate, as significant of 



