AMERICAN INDUSTRY. 61 



It is but a few years since its merits, for it makes no claims, 

 were acknowledged at the world's industrial exhibition in 

 London. At the first glance, the Crystal Palace presented 

 nothing old, nothing that had been accomplished, in whatever 

 perfection, that was not European. A second glance forced 

 from unwilling juries and ungracious spectators the admission 

 that there was nothing new that was not American. From ocean 

 steamers to the pleasure yachts, there was nothing in navigation 

 that equalled the American architecture. The wealth of John 

 Bull wasjbeyond his reach or power when under the key of 

 an American locksmith, and never secure to him when under 

 his own ; and English authors, who, during the exhibition 

 lamented that important agricultural machinery, in common 

 use by the Roman farmers, had never been successfully con- 

 structed by modern artisans. Among the multifarious and new 

 ideas embodied in the agricultural machinery of the American 

 department, I had the pleasure of witnessing the successful 

 operation of an American reaper ; as precise, perfect and expe- 

 ditious as any reaper described in Roman song or history. A 

 similar success attended the exhibition of Paris in 1855, and 

 American mechanics received the first and second premiums 

 for reaping machines, the first award for sewing machines, the 

 first for pianos, the first for skill in dentistry, the first for 

 threshing machines, and honorable awards for other mechanical 

 triumphs. Truly one might say that the goddess of invention 

 was neither deaf to the prayers nor an uninterested observer of 

 the patient vigils of the sons of this land of high destiny. In 

 view of such results we might almost receive as true — as it is — 

 the declaration of Macaulay, that genius is as much subject to 

 the laws of supply and demand as cottftii or flour, molasses 

 or gin. 



I trust I may be pardoned for this brief reference to the 

 progress of the arts of our own day. It is to commemorate such 

 advances in human knowledge, and especially when adapted to 

 the promotion of success in agriculture, that this association of 

 the devotees of American industry, was organized. It is for 

 this that the citizens of this ancient county, among the most 

 fertile and prosperous of the Commonwealth, have abandoned 

 their peaceful vocations and pleasures, for a day of festivity 

 united with improvement. It is by such gatherings that we 



