REPORT ON STOCK. 



As we review the stock, implements and other products of industry 

 exhibited at the Thirty-First Annual Fair, memory travels over some 

 earlier exhibitions of the Hampshire Agricultural Society, and strange 

 pictures start up in all their varied colors. Pictures of exiiibitions 

 where the clatter of the mowing machine was not heard, or the noise- 

 less sewing machine seen ; where kinds and varieties of fruit and veg- 

 etables were less, and their quality inferior to those on exhibition 

 to-day; — where the fragrant flowers were treated as a "side show." 

 Pictures of "native" cattle, long strings of working oxen, the old 

 brindle, white face and Hme-back cows, with young stock of all ages 

 bearino- the same marks ; ot the long-bristled, coarse-formed swine, 

 of the native sheep, and the dung-hill fowl. Pictures of the farm horse 

 that, with sufficient urging, could "go" five miles an liour ; of the 

 three-minute horse that possessed no good qualities but speed, and the 

 stallion in whose veins was not a drop of pure blood. 



How changed ! The name " native" applied to neat stock on exhi- 

 bition to-day would be a misnomer, for it is almost an impossibility to 

 find an animal that can trace back its pedigree for three generations 

 with no admixture of foreign blood ; and they show unmistakable 

 characteristics of those distinct breeds with which they have been 

 crossed. It is somewhat remarkable that we have not had any distinct 

 breed of cattle produced in this country, but have been rel>ing entirely 

 upon foreign blood, either to improve our native stock or to supplant 

 them. Still we have our choice animals, and when we assert the supe- 

 rior excellence of all classes on exhibition, we only give the united 

 testimony of all observing spectatoi'S. For these important improve- 

 ments the community are largely indebted to the Mass. Agricultural 



CoUeo'e to men like Lathrop, Sweetser, Cobb and Bates, wiio have 



from time to time given the matter their most careful attention ; all of 



