520 BRISTOL SOCIETY. 



BRISTOL COUNTY AGEICULTURAL 

 SOCIETY. 



The County of Bristol, in respect to the fertility of its soil, is 

 not among the most favored portions of the Commonwealth. 

 In some parts of it, manufactures and the mechanic arts, and, 

 in other portions, commerce and the whale fisheries, are the most 

 important interests. But there is in the county a large body 

 of intelligent farmers ; and, recently, agriculture and horticul- 

 ture have engaged an unusual degree of attention. The 

 Bristol County Agricultural Society has held a respectable, but 

 not a prominent rank among kindred associations. At several 

 periods, public attention has been attracted towards it ; but at 

 no former time has so general an interest been manifested in it 

 as within the last few years. The increased interest in agri- 

 culture and horticulture throughout the country has been shared 

 by this county. The cooperation of all producers has been 

 invited by this society. Our exhibitions of the products of 

 the county have increased in extent and variety from year to 

 year. Our anniversary has now become emphatically the 

 county festival. Farmers, mechanics, manufacturers, mer- 

 chants, and professional men, with their wives and children, 

 contribute to the exhibition, and participate in its cares and its 

 enjoyments. It has come to be a day looked forward to with 

 pleasant anticipations by the people of every walk of life. 

 This year, the exhibition, while in a few departments it did not 

 perhaps come up to the standard of some former years, .did, on 

 the whole, surpass in merits, beauty and attractiveness, that of 

 any former one. The cattle show and exhibition were held on 

 the fourteenth and fifteenth days of October, occupying two 

 days, as last year ; an arrrangement which has proved so sat- 

 isfactory, that the same course will probably be pursued here- 

 after. 



The exhibition of animals continued from ten o'clock on the 



