154 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



NATIONAL HORSE SHOW AT SPRINGFIELD. 



The undersigned, having been appointed as delegates from 

 the Massachusetts State Board of Agriculture to attend the 

 National Horse Show at Springfield, attended to the duty 

 assigned them, and were highly pleased and gratified with the 

 exhibition throughout. 



Limiting ourselves to a simple commendation, however, would 

 not be doing justice to the society under whoso auspices the 

 show was held, or to the spirited and energetic officers and 

 directors who managed it. 



The whole plan of the exhibition must have been thoroughly 

 matured to have enabled the managers to carry it through with 

 so little apparent effort, and the greatest vigilance and activity 

 were required to execute, from day to day, and from hour to 

 hour, what had been carefully arranged long before. 



The good order which everywhere prevailed was not the 

 least remarkable feature of the week's proceedings ; and the 

 bringing together of fifteen or twenty thousand people, men, 

 women and children, and again their subsequent dispersion, 

 without confusion and without riot, speaks volumes in praise, 

 not only of those who conducted the exhibition, but also of 

 those who were present upon that interesting occasion. Such a 

 scene, repeated from day to day for nearly a week, can be 

 witnessed in no other country. 



With regard to the animals exhibited, there can be no ques- 

 tion as to their unrivaled superiority in one department, that of 

 speed, and it is believed that never before have there been 

 brought together so many fine stallions, both trotters and 

 breeders. 



Whether speed, however, was not made too much the great 

 test, to the exclusion of other desirable qualities, in almost 

 every department, was a query which suggested itself to us, 

 only to be answered in the affirmative. Roadsters are not the 

 only class of horses which we require; nor if it were, is speed 

 the only requisite qualification. 



An exhibition called " National," prepared with the expense, 

 the labor, and the enterprise, which crowned this with success, 



