34 



THE LANCASTER FARMER. 



t March, 



LOCAL AGRICULTURAL FAIR. 

 As will be seen by the proceedings of the 

 last meeting of our local society, near their 

 close, preliminary action was taken in rela- 

 tion to a proposed fair of the society next fall. 

 And the society has acted not one moment 

 too soon. Indeed, several societies that we 

 have heard of had committed themselves to 

 such an enterprise full two months ago. 



We hope our farmers and manufacturers 

 will take sufficient interest in the enterprise 

 to insure its success, and this we are confident 

 they can accomplish with only an ordinary 

 effort. Let every participant go to work as 

 if the whole enterprise depended upon his own 

 energy, his own volition and his own presence, 

 and in this way a spirit will be started that 

 will become infectious. 



It will appear, too, that the exhibition 

 rooms and other out-buildings of the Park are 

 to be changed into tobacco warehouses, so 

 that they will not be available for fair ,'Ur- 

 poses. Well, that is something of a draw- 

 back, but it is not necessarily a sine qua non 

 to a successful exhibition. The fact is, the 

 capacity of the Northern Market House — the 

 place suggested — has never j'et been properly 

 tested, never has been even half filled at any 

 of the former fans held there. If every ave- 

 nue and every stand of that building was oc- 

 cupied it would make as grand a display as 

 any county could desire to make. "With 

 proper economy of space and a proper arrang- 

 meut and classification of material that build- 

 ind could easily accommodate six times as 

 much as has ever been placed there on exhibi- 

 tion. 



It is true, there would be no space for large 

 machinery, but they are not exactly essential 

 to success moreover, there are always state 

 fairs and county fairs where ample facilities 

 exist for the exhibition of heavy machinery, 

 and inventors and proprietors will avail them- 

 selves of these. But small or light machines, 

 agricultural and domestic implements, bee 

 products, chickens and poultry in general, 

 grain and seeds, garden and field vegetation. 

 Fruits, flowers, household productions, music 

 and musical instruments, needle work, draw- 

 ing, and last, not least, the various manufac- 

 tures of toDacco. Leaf tobacco of various kinds 

 besides many other things would all serve to 

 make, in their aggregate, a splendid fair. 

 Tobacco is becoming king, as much so as ever 

 cotton was in the south, and, therefore, the 

 tobacco interest alone could get up a fair in 

 Lancaster county if only a moiety of the in- 

 terest was manifested that prevailed at the 

 centennial four years ago. Try it, tobacco 

 men, and show the world what can be done 

 here. But, says one, "it takes too much 

 labor to get up and superintend exhibitions 

 of this kind." True, it does require labor, 

 but we would like to know if anything ever 

 can be, or ever has been accomplished in this 

 world without labor, and sometimes very hard 

 and incessant labor. Most of the labor, how- 

 ever, required in getting up fairs can be pur- 

 chased at a very reasonalsle price,but the direct- 

 ing and controling energy may not always be 

 as accessible, or so abundant, as circumstances 

 might require. The labor, in fact, has not 

 heretofore been the chief trouble; it has been 

 the seeming want of interest, and the unwill- 

 ingness to labor on the part of the many, and 

 casting the burdens of labor upon the shoul- 

 ders of the few, which has always been the 

 cause of complaint. But, really, even this is 

 but a poor excuse for opposition, or indiffer- 

 ence in relation to a fair. The many could 

 not work to advantage; they would be in each 

 other's way — "too many cooks spoil the 

 broth;" as a general thing it must be dele- 

 gated to a few, and these few clothed with au- 

 thority to employ such assistance as they 

 require. 



An early start, a liberal premium list, 

 equitable rules, attractive posters and ample 

 advertising, backed with intelligent and ener- 

 getic management, are the best "booms" to 

 help along a fair. With these elements un- 

 selfishly "used and not abused," if the Al- 

 mighty deems us worthy of any crops at all 



in 1880, we may be able to get up and sustain 

 an exliibition worthy of the "name and fame" 

 of Lancaster county. It won't do for us to be 

 as our ancestors; we must transcend them 

 just as thoy transcended their ancestors in the 

 Palatinate, and planted themselves on Amer- 

 ican soil, where there was room to expand. 

 Therefore we must "push along, keep mov- 

 ing," for if we stop, the car of progress will 

 pass us and we shall be left behind. It must 

 be evident to all who have ears to hear and 

 eyes to see, that, like the unsophisticated old 

 farmer whose mind was opening to a consci- 

 ousness of these things— "We can't do as we 

 used to did, because we ain't as we used to 

 was." And none manifest in their domestic 

 habits and customs a more practical appre- 

 hension of these things than the yeomanry of 

 the county; in many respects they are really 

 in advance of their city cousins, although they 

 may seem otherwise. There are more bene- 

 fits accrumg from the public expositions of 

 the products of the soil and the workshop 

 than are immediately visible. It is a kind of 

 planting, the reaping season of which will 

 follow in due time. Speed then— "The plow, 

 the anchor and the shuttle— united they 

 stand, divided they fall;" for "In union there 

 is strength." 



OBITUARY. 



Owing to our limited space we have not 

 been in the habit of publishing death notices, 

 even when the departed belonged to the noble 

 army of agriculturists, except in a few very 

 near and special cases, but the following from 

 the Germantoivn Telegraph of February 25, 

 1880, is such a distinguished record, and the 

 deceased had been so long before the world of 

 agriculture and was so widely known and ap- 

 preciated that we feel our readers will thank 

 us for inserting such a record in the columns 

 of our journal, where it may be referred to by 

 themselves, by their children and their chil- 

 dren's children, when they themselves have 

 passed away. Very few of our readers per- 

 haps have ever seen the man (we never have) 

 but who has not seen, or could not have seen 

 if he wished it, a copy of the familiar little 

 '■'Landreih^s Rural Begister,'''' which has been 

 published these many years, aud gi atuitously 

 scattered abroad with such a liberal hand. 

 It was more than a mere advertisement, for 

 it was always well filled with matters inter- 

 esting and useful to the farmer and gardener: 

 "It is with great sorrow that we are called 

 upon in our present issue to announce the 

 death of David Landreth, the great seed- 

 grower and merchant of Philadelphia. He 

 died at his residence, "Bloomsdale,,' near 

 Bristol, on the Delaware, on Sunday last, in 

 the 79th year of his age. He owned and ope- 

 rated the largest seed farm in the world, his 

 principal depot for the sale of his seeds and 

 cognate matters being in this city, though 

 there were branches elsewhere. His father, 

 who came from England, established the first 

 seed farm in this country, in what is called 

 "The Neck," and his son succeeded him in 

 the business, but changed the location of the 

 farm to the Delaware, two miles above 

 Bristol, where he added to its dimensions 

 until he had acquired a tract of land which 

 for beauty, fertility, and as especially adap- 

 ted to his business, is not surpassed in this 

 country or in Europe. The deceased was the 

 head of the firm of the well-kno\Yn house of 

 D. Landreth & Sons, and for unswerving in- 

 tegrity, reliable and scrupulous characteristics 

 was the peer of any man in the community. 

 "In the year 1827 he was active in founding 

 the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society, the 

 first American Association of its kind, and in 

 the following year he was chosen its Corres- 

 ponding Secretary, which office he filled for 

 nine successive years. As an associate of the 

 Philadeli)hia Society for the Promotion of 

 Agriculture, he zealously co-operated for 

 many years, and for two successive terms 

 filled its highest official station. It was dur- 

 ing his occupancy of the presidency that the 

 United States Agricultural Society held its 

 famous exliibition at Powelton. 



' 'The rural writings of Mr. Landreth are 

 diffused through periodicals and pamphlets, 

 and some of the latter have attained a wide 

 circulation. For some years past he has re- 

 sided at Bloomsdale, a most beautiful resi- 

 dence which he erected, aud where he died. 

 It is an estate of 500 acres devoted to seed- 

 culture, and also contains an arboretum, 

 principally of conebearers and other ever- 

 greens of interest to botanists. During the 

 latter years of his residence at Bloomsdale he 

 very rarely visited the city, the business of 

 the house being managed by his sons, who 

 were brought up to it and thorouglily under- 

 stand all its multitudinous ramifications. 



"Mr. Landreth was a gentleman by nature, 

 education and association. He was a fine 

 conversationiilist, genial in disposition, of 

 extremely pleasant manners, and never failed 

 to impress every one favorably though he may 

 have never met him but once. He was warm- 

 hearted, sympathetic, generous and true. His 

 loss will be long felt and mourned, and the 

 vacancy he has caused will be long left im- 

 flUed. 



"We learn that the deceased died calmly, 

 with perfect resignation, surrounded by his 

 family, who loved him so devotedly, and that 

 he retained his full mental powers to the end. 

 His funeral took place on Thursday, at a 

 quarter past three o'clock, at St. .James' 

 church, Bristol. 



THE WEATHER. 



It has long since passed into a vulgar pro- 

 verb that "all signs fail in dry weather;" 

 which is presumed, no doubt, to be otherwise 

 in wet weather. But it seems they are as 

 likely to fail in one kind of weather as in the 

 other. The winter of 1879-80 cannot be said 

 to have been a ciry one, indeed, it has rather 

 been the contrary, and yet all prognostica- 

 tions in regard to its specific character have 

 signally failed. Not a single prediction in 

 reference to it, however, commonplace or 

 learned, has been fulfilled. It has been barely 

 four weeks since we had a bright, clear and 

 sunny Candlemas, which, according to an old 

 tradition, presages six weeks of cold, bluster- 

 ing .and wintery, weather, and yet with the 

 exception of a very few days, all that interval 

 has been mild and spring-like, and the dande- 

 lion, the snowdrop and the crocus have been 

 in bloom, and to make the case stronger, the 

 groundhog who is supposed to be wonderfully 

 weatlierwise, ventured abroad on the 28th of 

 February and "put his foot in" a steel trap, . 

 when his disciples in meteorological lore 

 thought he was still enjoying his six weeks 

 nap. °lt is true "old prob." generally makes a 

 near approximation to the kind of weather 

 we are going to have within twelve or twenty- 

 four hours, but he rarely ventures beyond 

 that. He does'nt pretend to foretell what 

 kind of weather we will have for a week, ten 

 days or a month hence, as some do — yea, six 

 months hence has been confidently claimed 

 by a few of them. Doubtless there must be 

 some cause for these abnormal conditions of 

 the weather, but those causes are hidden too 

 deeply in the weather's "wisdom chest" for 

 mortals to pry into and proclaim. Can the 

 cause be planetary ? Can it be that our new 

 stargazing association has made the planets 

 cross, and that they are punisliing us for our 

 trespass upon their domain ? Thursday 

 afternoon, March 4th sent the mercury up to 

 72^ of Fahrenheit, and the bees were fairly 

 rollicking in the few flowers they could find. 

 What wonderfully vivifying elements, light, 

 heat and moisture are, no matter at what 

 season of the year they may occur. They es- 

 pecially disturb the repose of plants and ani- 

 mals in their winter hibernations, not even 

 sparing the groundhog — secretly prying into i 

 the arcanum of nature, rousing animate and 

 inanimate life into activity, telling them to go 

 forth and prosper in the things relating to ] 

 their ditlerent organizations, and they go 

 forth. They don't stop to consider theH 

 various prognostications of weather-prophets, 

 whether bipeds or quadrupeds. Whatever 

 may yet be hidden in the womb of the future I 



