HAMPDEN SOCIETY. 185 



ering the staple character of this esculent, and the public as 

 well as private interest that attaches to every development of 

 new conditions of its growth and health, we do not feel that 

 we violate the discretion vested in ns, in recommending gratui- 

 ties of $1 to each of the above-named contributors. 



CHARLES DELANO, Chairman. 



Domestic Manufactures. 



This year of our Lord eighteen hundred and fifty-one will 

 long be famous in the history of mechanic art. The artisan 

 shall name it with honest pride, as the year of the great 

 World's Fair, the high festival of skilful labor. 



Your committee must be permitted, in this connection, to 

 direct attention to the fact, that the plough of Prouty & Mears, 

 No. 40, which bore off the palm in " running aloneP at the 

 ploughing match conducted by this society, last year, has since 

 gained the victory against the world, in the great trial which 

 was arranged in connection with the World Exhibition. Partly 

 for the sake of this flattering endorsement of your proceedings, 

 and partly for more general reasons, we have alluded to the 

 most distinguished event in the records of industry. 



It was a happy thought which led to the union of agriculture 

 and the mechanic arts, in these annual celebrations. " The 

 plough, the loom and the anvil" belong together ; each is 

 dependent upon the other, and society is most favorably consti- 

 tuted for progress, where the interests which these three words 

 represent are duly fostered. The farmer looks to the mechanic 

 for a convenient house and barn, for the skilfully devised 

 plough, for tools which shall enable him to speed without slight- 

 ing his work, for the strong wagon which bears his harvest 

 homeward, six days, and for the graceful vehicle which con- 

 veys the household to church on the first day. The mechanic 

 must have good corn and good beef, or his sinewy arm grows 

 weak, and both farmer and mechanic, directly or indirectly, are 

 greatly benefited by the ingenious labor-saving contrivances 

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