115 



the poultry products of Essex, aside from the living birds 

 are over $225,000 annually. 



But the glory of this Society's exhibition was in the 

 various halls crowded with fruits, flowers, the products of 

 the dairy, domestic manufactures, fancy articles and fine 

 arts, while in great piles arose the liberal contributions 

 from the mills, of woolen, cotton and mixed fabrics. 

 Essex County has been always celebrated for good fruit 

 from its first introduction by the colonists, while for vege- 

 tables the names of Gregory, Low, Buxton and Ware have 

 made it famous through the whole extent of this country. 

 I do not think such another display could be made in New 

 England except by the Massachusetts Horticultural 

 Society, of which these Essex men are a part, and gen- 

 erous contributors. 



1 am fully mindful of the extraordinarily fine displays 

 made by the several granges and bear testimony to this 

 evidence of the centering of agricultural interest in this 

 old society. 



The second day is devoted to an address, a dinner, and 

 subsequent oratory. The address was a very sensible dis- 

 course on the evils of our criminal law and its enforce- 

 ment, the dinner and the after speaking were about equally 

 good. Much sorrow was manifested at the recent death of 

 Dr. Loring,?always prominent and interesting at the meet- 

 ings of the Essex Society. Both days were exceptionally 

 fine, but I shuddered at the thought of what the condition 

 of the poor animals would have been in their unprotected 

 condition if there had happened a cold pitiless storm, so 

 likely to occur at this season of the year. 



The question of a peripatetic society going from one 

 town to another on difi'erent years, carrying their mov- 

 able pens, with no protection for the. beasts against sun 

 and storm, would now as a mode of operation by any new 

 society, be both unwise and impracticable, but with this 

 society it is a condition, not a theory, not a question, but 

 an accepted fact of over seventy years duration. 



