78 ON DOMESTIC MANUFACTURES. 



ON DOiMESTlC MANUFACTURES. 



The Committee on Domestic Manufactures, having 

 attended to the duty assigned them, beg leave to Re- 

 port : 



The number of articles entered in this department 

 was not so large as that of the past year ; but in the 

 taste and skill displayed in their execution, no falling oflf 

 was perceptible to your Committee. On the contrary, 

 some of the wrought pieces, — the fairy work of fairy 

 fingers, — seemed to your Committee more like the pro- 

 ductions of foreign countries than those of our own fire- 

 sides. By some it may be thought that these articles of 

 taste are hardly worthy of the time and pains bestowed 

 upon them ; but to your Committee it seems, that 

 whatever contributes to the pleasure of the eye, wheth- 

 er in works of art or nature, is highly deserving of en- 

 couragement. If the moral influence of flowers be, as 

 we all know it to be, so powerful and salutary, we see 

 no reason why the faithful imitation of flowers on car- 

 pets and rugs and quilts and other coverings, may not 

 also be beneficial. How many are the virtues called 

 forth too in their execution ! The good wife, or her fair 

 daughter, saves all the fragments of cloth for a carpet 

 or a rug — at the same time she is learning or at least 

 practising that most useful virtue, frugality. Like the 

 bee she devotes hours and hours to construct her curious 

 fabric, and like the winged honey-merchant, she is ex- 

 hibiting a pattern of patience and industry. Whether, 

 therefore, in the benefits or the pleasures they contribute 

 to domestic life, the description of wrought articles to 

 which v/e have alluded, are well entitled to the contin- 

 ued patronage of this Society, and we trust that the re- 

 wards which it bestows upon them will continue to ex- 

 cite competition among the fair fingers of Essex county, 

 till in every house will be seen a trophy of success. 



The number of rugs this year exhibited was about equal 

 to the number of towns in the county — though many of 



