• APPENDIX. xxxi 



was ravaged by war. The most important and growing industry of 

 this last State which was broken up by the war, was the feeding of 

 Merino slieep recently introduced by those farmers who appreciated the 

 importance of this wool-growing animal. 



We trust the farmers of Berkshire will not falter in the path upon 

 which they have entered ; and that their next exhibition will show as 

 much perfection in this, as in the other branches of agriculture. 



Geo. B. Loring. 



HOUSATONIC. 



The fair of the Housatonic Society was held on their grounds in 

 Great Barrington, on the 28th, 29th and 30th days of September. 



Necessary engagements elsewhere' prevented my attendance the first 

 day, an event that I regretted, as I learned on my arrival that the 

 exhibition of all stock, excepting horses, is confined to that day, and the 

 more, as the show in this department was said by those who witnessed 

 it to have been very fine. 



After making the acquaintance of some of the officers of the society, 

 I learned from them that its condition continues to be flourishing, as, 

 indeed, everything connected with the operations indicated. 



There being, when I arrived, but little doing abroad, I made my 

 examination of the hall. The first object that arrested my attention, so 

 different from anything in those parts of the State, with which I am more 

 familiar, was the magnificent display of butter ; not in diminutive boxes 

 of five pounds each, and those few in number at that, but in solid jars 

 of twenty-five to fifty pounds, and not an inferior article, to judge from 

 the appearance, in the whole. When I compared this artistic produc- 

 tion, so indicative of the higher New England thought, and so connected 

 with the refining influence of cultivated domestic life, with the coarse 

 weed that covers so large a portion of the fertile lands bordering on the 

 Connecticut, I could scarcely refrain from the feeling that the farmere 

 of Berkshire tower aloft in the true spirit . of their profession as far 

 above those of my native valley, as her grand mountain peaks above 

 our own smoke-producing plains. 



Compare the two products together. They are the very opposites of 

 each other. One suggests filth, the other cleanliness. The cultivation 

 of the one brings the outer man into continued contact with worms and 

 dirt, oftentimes defiling the conscience as well by laying it under con- 

 tinued protest, while its use is atteuded frequently with habits that set 



