REPORT ON THE AGRK^ULTURAL EXHIBIT. 



By JAMES WOOD, Mount Kisco, Dibector in Chief. 



Ill July, 1892, the World's Fair managers for the State of New York 

 requested Mr. James Wood, of Mount Kisco, to take charge of the 

 work of preparing and installing New York's agricultural exhibit at 

 the Columbian Exposition, with the title of director in chief, and the 

 duties of the position were entered upon the iirst of August. The 

 board appointed as secretary of the bureau, Francis L. Underbill, of 

 Mount Kisco. The State Agricultural Society was requested to 

 recommend a competent person, familiar with the agriculture of the 

 State, who could render effective assistance in the collection of the 

 exhibits, and its executive board proposed Col. Hezekiah Bowen, of 

 Medina, Orleans county, who had long been connected with the State 

 fairs as general superintendent, and who was at once appointed for the 

 service indicated. 



It was determined that the exhibit should, if possible, be made to 

 illustrate the State's varied agricultural interests. In the almost end- 

 less variety of these New Yoii is peculiar. The districts of the Miss- 

 issippi valley and the Hock}' Mountain slopes have taken from her a 

 great share of the grain growing and the meat production that were 

 once of paramount importance, but the intelligence and enterprise of 

 her people have sought and developed a great variety of other interests 

 until our agriculture has become the most diversified of any upon the 

 American continent, and is surpassed by that of but few countries in any 

 portion of the earth. The sum of the values of these varied interests 

 makes the State still, as it long has been, the foremost of the sisterhood 

 in agricultural production. Extending from the Atlantic ocean to the 

 Great Lakes, with an unusual range in elevations from its sea level to 

 its extended valleys, its broad table lands and high mountain slopes, 

 with great differences in exposures, and with an unusual variety of 

 geological formations and consequent diversity of soils, the State is 

 fitted for growing almost every crop and every variety of fruit found 

 anywhere within the earth's temperate zone, while every domestic 

 animal of special value to mankind can be reared within her borders 

 and fitted for its greatest possible usefulness. 



This diversity made the work of securing an adequate representation 

 at the exposition one of peculiar difSculty. The difficulty was increased 

 by the fact that our farmers could have but little personal interest in 

 the State's exhibit as compared with that of their brethren in the 

 western States where the attraction of emigration is considered of such 

 great importance. New settlers are not looked for here, and the value 

 of our lands is not so much dependent on such influences. The results 

 achieved at such comparatively moderate expense have shown that the 

 public spirit of our people accomplishes more than do the considera- 

 tions of personal gain. 



