330 
FAIR AT BRIDGEPORT, CONNECTICUT, ETC. 
covered anything that he thinks will benefit his 
neighbor, make it known. 
Recollect it is almost time to renew your sub- 
scription to the Agriculturist and that next year we 
are going to make it better and better. 
# 
WORK FOR NOVEMBER, SOTJTH. 
This is a busy month in all the cotton and sugar 
states. As the laborers are proverbially careless, 
we bespeak most earnestly the attention of masters 
and managers to keep a sharp look out for fire. In 
no other way can you be assured against the entire 
destruction of a whole crop. Use no other light 
about the gin house, than a wire-gauze lamp. Have 
your gins provided with " water boxes " that pre- 
vent all danger from friction. In a few years, you 
will be able to buy gins that are superior to the 
Whitney gin, and entirely free from danger of tak- 
ing fire. They are already invented. 
Cotton Presses. — Have you ever thought that the 
presses now in general use are not what they should 
be ? There are better ones. Look to it. We can 
cite you to one planter, (Col. Hampton, of S. C.,) 
whose bales never need re-pressing. It would cost 
you no more to do them right, in the first place, than 
it does to make the miserable packages you now 
do. Then how much you would save ! 
Cotton Baskets. — What are you going to do when 
all your basket timber is exhausted, as it soon will 
be % in fact is, in some places 1 Will you send 
north for them ? Well, we can supply you ; hut 
you had better plant and grow timber — the osier 
willow, for instance. Look to it this month. 
Cotton Seed. — Do not neglect this all-important 
matter. Look what the ' ; Prouty or Hogan seed " 
has come to from careful selection. There is no 
need for you to pay " a dime a seed," to get a good 
article, if you will only select it yourself, a few 
years. 
Feeding Stock on Pea Fields. — This is the month 
more than all others that cattle and hogs die from 
eating peas. Be careful and feed your hogs well 
with corn or salt slops, before turning them in. 
Salt and feed your cattle well. Do not turn hungry 
cattle upon fresh pea vines. If you have not hogs 
enough this year to make yourjneat, look out now 
for a supply, before they are put up to fatten. You 
can raise pork better .than you can buy it with 
cotton. 
Fruit Trees. — Do not forget that this is the best 
month in the year to order fruit trees from the 
north. Don't try for a great assortment, but just a 
few of the choicest kinds. Col. Carter and Dr. 
Cloud, of Macon county, Alabama, have growing 
upon their farms, a native winter apple, that is 
perhaps superior to any other. It is worthy of 
notice at the south. It is probable that Dr. 
Philips, of Hinds county, Mississippi, also has it; 
at any rate, he has got the best assortment of 
fruit trees in the south that we know anything 
about. 
Provide for Winter. — Although you live in the 
" sunny south," we have seen some very chilly 
blasts among your cotton bales and sugar hogs- 
heads. Therefore, provide for winter. Some of 
you live in houses no better than they should be, 
and some of your people would live entirely out 
loors if their masters did not make them build 
themselves houses. So, as you have done pick- 
ing cotton, or ought to be this month, in all the 
northern parts of cottondom, go to work and fix up 
for winter. Make Old Jo daub up the cracks in 
in his house, and he won't complain so much of 
rheumatism next winter. Send Long Jim to top 
out Old Aunt Katy's chimney, and you won't hear 
the children in the nursery squall so much. The 
plantation hands are proverbially careless. You 
know they won't fix up themselves, so you must 
make them, and we must make you. Go and see 
Col. Hampton, and some others we could name, and 
get a pattern for negro houses. This is the month 
north and south, to provide for winter. 
o — 
FAIR AT BRIDGEPORT, CONNECTICUT. 
This was one of the most extraordinary agri- 
cultural shows of the present year. Fairfield 
county has long been noted for containing a popu- 
lation of old-fashioned farmers, who have continued 
to imp-rove their farms just as their fathers did be- 
fore them, and whom, it was thought, nothing could 
arouse to take an active part in any of the efforts 
that a few have made to sustain an agricultural 
society. The affort had nearly died out, until, by 
some lucky chance, P. T. Barnum, Esq., became 
enlisted in the good cause, and at once determined 
that fair-field county should have a Fair that would 
awaken her from her lethargy. And as it is well 
known that whatever he undertakes will be done, 
you may be assured that this county never saw 
such a turn out upon any similar occasion. The 
moral effect upon an agricultural community, of 
these great holidays for the farmers, and all their 
household, I need not discuss now, as it is a self- 
evident fact to all observers. 
The efforts made by Mr. Barnum to awaken 
public attention to the importance of this fair, and 
to get up such a show as would make it interesting, 
as well as useful, are well worthy the example of 
those who are solely engaged in agricultural pur- 
suits. Judging from the great crowd in attendance, 
there is no doubt hut such an interest is awakened 
as will never sleep. For two days and the 
intervening evening, the two large halls of exhibi- 
tion were crowded to excess ; but whether the 
greatest curiosity was to see the " smallest produc- 
tion of Fairfield county," or not, is uncertain, as 
among the rest of the productions upon exhibition, 
was that most wonderful and celebrated human 
being in the world, known as "General Tom 
Thumb !" 
The quantity of agricultural products exhibited, 
was altogether too small for such a county as this; 
and such as were there, were shown to great disad- 
vantage ; because they were brought in at so late 
an hour that it was impossible to have them arranged 
in order. This is greatly owing to a want of interest 
upon the part of farmers. They do not come as 
honorable competitors for premiums, nor even with 
a strong desire to do all in their power to make up 
a show of the products of their farms, that shall do 
honor to the county, but merely to gratify curiosity 
and see what somebody else has to show. 
One of the most interesting exhibitions in the 
hall was the great display of implements from the 
New-York Agricultural Warehouse of A. B. Allen 
& Co., which were all brought in and properly 
