328 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE. 



Britain. To the farmers there, they are of great importance, 

 constituting their chief, or perhaps their only opportunities of 

 effecting profitable sales or purchases of stock. The different 

 breeds of neat stock, of horses, of sheep and of swine, are 

 exposed to sale, often in large numbers and of great excellence, 

 at the local fairs in the quarter where they are raised ; and they 

 attract to them dealers from a distance, with the certainty that 

 they can find just the description of animals they are in want 

 of. This, with the local attendance, usually insures a brisk 

 business. And so great is the convenience of a market day 

 considered to be to the neighborhood in which it is held, that 

 new fairs are constantly springing up, the only limitation to 

 their number being the amount of business which may be 

 controlled by them. 



Besides live stock, fruit, vegetables and grains, find pur- 

 chasers at these fairs, and they are offered for sale either in 

 bulk or by sample, the latter being the more usual way of 

 disposing of large quantities of any commodity. Most of these 

 fairs, too, have a well-known and specific character, and are 

 noted, some for the superior quality of one kind of stock or of 

 produce, and others for that of another kind. And they often 

 receive their name from the predominant article exposed to 

 sale ; as, for example, a fair at which large quantities of cherries 

 are presented, is called the Cherry Fair, and one of which 

 sheep is the characteristic feature is called a Sheep Fair. 



But in this country, or at least in New England, we have 

 nothing answering to these fairs or market days. The nearest 

 approach to them are the cattle markets established in the 

 immediate vicinity of our largest cities, and mainly for the 

 supply of the meat for their consumption, as those held weekly 

 at Brighton and Cambridge, in our own Commonwealth, and 

 which are the only markets of any extent for the sale of live 

 stock, within her borders. These, however, differ in some 

 important particulars from the fairs proposed for consideration. 

 They are exclusively for the sale and purchase of live stock, 

 and that stock is mostly brought from a distance, sometimes 

 even from the far West. They afford a good opportunity for 

 farmers in the surrounding country to purchase such animals 

 as they stand in need of, and they are resorted to very generally 

 by them for this object. But they are not intended to encourage 



