Address. 



This was a little more than fifty years since, and the " Berkshire 

 system " of cattle shows, with some modifications, has prevailed over the 

 country. The novelty of crop viewing has vanished with the timidity of 

 the fair sex, who arc no longer afraid of being laughed at, but rather dare 

 to do whatever man essays, and we are to-day assembled as members of one 

 of the most flourishing of these exhibitions, at the close of a bountiful 

 harvest, to bring together our best if not first fruits, to exhibit our best 

 animals, including our wives, our children and our noble selves, and to 

 listen to the lesson of the day, and wind up our festivities by relieving our 

 treasurer of his load of silver. Now, if we had time, the true way of 

 arriving at the best results from our gathering together, would be to resolve 

 ourselves into a model town-meeting, with a president and prcsidentress, 

 and give the substance of our doings during the year, and then compare 

 notes and strike the balance in fa vol- of those who have served the Lord 

 as faithfully when planting, manuring and hoeing, as when singing hallelu- 

 jahs, and whose handiwork bespeaks His and their praise. But for the 

 same reason that the ancient Wittenagcmottes or assemblies of the whole 

 people have to give way to the modern contrivances of Parliaments and 

 Legislatures, in which the few represent the many, on this occasion we 

 are forced to put up with a substitute, or representative, whose endeavor 

 will be to hold up your hands in the good work, and set before you some 

 of the privileges and responsibilities, as well as opportunities of farming in 

 New England, and we will defer to the holidays those " innocent festivities ' 

 of Mr. Watson, at which the younger members may "trip the light fan- 

 tastic toes,'' and the eider the as light and flowing tongues, and all together 

 partake of that combined feast and flow, for which the " Farmers' Festivals'' 

 of Berkshire have become famous. 



" What a poor cuss the man must be who owns this farm," said a trav- 

 eler, as he rode past an immensely neglected one. " Not so poor as you 

 think," exclaimed a voice from a head which peeped out over the wall, " I 

 only own one-half of it ! " This anecdote might have been plastered on to 

 good many farms, even in Berkshire county, in Watson's time, but since 

 then wherever it has paid to farm well, cultivation has advanced, and a 

 man is not ashamed to own a whole farm in any settled part of New 

 England, and the brains must be wanting where some use cannot be made 

 of all the arable and woodlaud, and a profit realized in the multiplication 

 ot animals, the sale of butter, cheese or milk, the distribution of vegetables 

 and small fruits in our manufacturing towns, the supplying of beef and 



