OPPORTUNITIES OF THE FARMER. 63 



OPPORTUNITIES OF THE NEW ENGLAND 

 FARMER. 



From an Address before the Housatonic Agricultural Society, 



BY KICHARD GOODMAN. 



In August, 1810, Elkauah Watson, then an amateur farmer 

 in Pittsfield, with twenty-six others, prepared and presented an 

 appeal for an exhibition in the square in tlie village of Pittsfield, 

 on the first of October ensuing, from nine to three o'clock, at 

 which time the first Berkshire cattle-show was exhibited with 

 considerable eclat, though the farmers in the vicinity held back 

 many of their animals for fear of being laughed at, " which," 

 says Mr. Watson, " compelled me to lead the way with several 

 prime animals ; " and as he had previously purchased some 

 blooded pigs from Dutchess County, and Durham, or, as they 

 were then called, English bulls, from Cherry Yalley, in the State 

 of New York, he was probably enabled to make the Pittsfield 

 farmers rejoice that they had not put in competition their long- 

 legged, tall, lank-sided swine, and their diminutive, peak-backed 

 mongrel bulls. But this show prepared the way for the " real 

 exhibition " of 1811, and the incorporation of the Berkshire 

 Agricultural Society, with ample powers but no funds. The 

 clergy were at first shy of officiating on these occasions, consid- 

 ering them bubbles of the moment ; but these bubbles have in- 

 creased into tidal waves, washing not only the shores of New 

 England, but the whole American continent. The list of agri- 

 cultural fairs in the United States amounts to at least one thou- 

 sand, and wherever the Yankee farmer goes, he carries with 

 him, in addition to his pulpit, his school-house and his town- 

 meeting, his annual cattle-show ; and neither ministers nor law- 

 yers are any longer shy of officiating on these occasions, either 

 as exhibitors, preachers or spectators. 



