FOREIGN AGRICULTURAL NEWS. 
187 
FOREIGN AGRICULTURAL NEWS. 
By the steampackets Acadia, Hibernia, and Great 
Western, we have regular files of European journals 
to the 5th August. 
Markets. — Cotton has advanced since our advices 
of the 4th of July §d. per lb. A large business has 
been done in it during the last month, and upon the 
whole, prospects seem rather in favor of a still farther 
advance. The stock on hand at Liverpool on the 1st 
August, was estimated at 941,000 bales, against 592,000 
at same period last year. Wheat, Flour, Beef, Pork, 
Lard, Hams, and Bacon, were in good demand, and 
prices advancing. Butter quite nominal. Cheese in 
fair request. Lard-oil had just appeared in market, 
and was exciting some attention. In Rice, a large 
business was doing, and for Tobacco, a fair demand ex¬ 
isted. With the exception of cotton, there was but a 
light stock of American agricultural exports of ail 
kinds on hand, and we think that large sales for them 
were never more certain, and we congratulate our 
planters and farmers on the flattering prospects abroad 
for their products. 
Money is as abundant in Europe as ever, and there 
is no doubt that capitalists will soon embark in enter¬ 
prises for its more full employment. American stocks 
were looking up a trifle. 
The Weather for the last fortnight had been cold, 
rainy, and unfavorable, and fears were entertained that 
the crops would suffer somewhat in consequence of it 
The harvest will be late and precarious, which will 
doubtless have some effect upon our own grain and 
provision market. 
In addition to our regular journals, we are indebted 
to P. L. Simmonds, Esq., Foreign Newspaper Agent, 
No. 18 Cornhill, London, for the Derbyshire Chronicle, 
Family Herald, Mark Lane Express, Pictorial Times, 
Illustrated News, Model Mapping, &c., &c. The 
great event of the month was the Annual Meeting and 
Show of the Royal Agricultural Society of England at 
Derby. It was as usual most numerously attended, up¬ 
ward of 40,000 persons being present, with a superb dis¬ 
play of stock, agricultural implements, seeds, and roots. 
The Pictorial Times, and Illustrated News, have given 
numerous handsomely-engraved sketches of the scenes 
at Derby, the grand pavilion dinner, plowing match, cat¬ 
tle yard, stock, implements, visiters, tents, and booths. 
It was commenced on Tuesday, July 11th, and con¬ 
tinued four days. The first day was devoted to the 
show of implements in the yard, and we see that iron is 
much more used in all these than in our own country; 
for there are gates, gate-posts, fences, coping, spouts, 
feeding-troughs, mangers, racks, rollers, tree-guards, 
hurdles, wheelbarrows, plows, harrows, chairs, tree- 
stands, pumps, liquid-manure tanks, buckets, and a 
great variety of other things made up entirely of iron. 
The second day, the plowing match, and a general 
trial of implements took place, which for the want of 
proper ground, and the difficulty of procuring horses, 
proved a failure. The implement-yard continued open 
for visiters; but that where the stock was stationed 
was kept closed to the public, so that the judges might 
not be interrupted in their inspection. Of what else 
there was to be seen on this day, the London Farmer’s 
Magazine gives a somewhat comic description. 
We may briefly remark upon the accommodations 
and amusements which had been provided for the “ en¬ 
tertainment of man and beast.” The whole neighbor¬ 
hood of the large pavilion which had been erected, in 
close contiguity to the railway station, and consequently 
to the town, was crowded with suttling booths, bazaars, 
cigar divans, shows, moveable theatres, stalls for games 
of chance, swings, and all the paraphernalia of a coun¬ 
try wake or fair. There were likewise book stalls, 
and temporary newspaper offices, at which the daily 
London and provincial weekly newspapers might be 
procured in abundance. There were exhibitions of 
curiosities and wonders more than the most insatiable 
appetite for monstrosities and sights could have desired. 
There were wild beasts and tame beasts, jugglers, pyr¬ 
otechnists, and other animals, human, inhuman, and 
superhuman, “ new as imported,” to say nothing of the 
arboretum, the museum, the theatre, and other places 
of spectacle and amusement native to the town. 
Of those exhibitions brought for the occasion, the 
picture of the Country Meeting last year of the Royal 
Agricultural Society, containing upward of 130 por¬ 
traits, was chief; many of the portraits were good, 
alike in point of execution and similitude. Among the 
more marvellous sights, was that of a tree, exhibited 
as “ The largest tree in the world—the Mammoth 
Sycamore of Indiana J” It was asserted to be 75 feet 
in circumference, to have stabled 17 horses at one time, 
to have been the famed Gretna Green of Indiana; and 
for some yeai’s to have been used by a giant as a hotel 
for travellers. This vegetable phenomenon is said to 
have been known for about 50 years as the great Salt 
River Sycamore, and is supposed to have existed before 
the deluge. The history of its arrival in this country 
is, that Mr. G. Combe, the phrenologist, while on a 
tour from New York through the western states of 
North America, made arrangements for its removal, 
and at considerable cost it was conveyed by the various 
rivers and the Mississippi to New Orleans, thence to 
New York, and London. 
We give this, however, merely as a sample of the 
miracles of nature which Derby was made the theatre 
for the display of, not as a question pertaining to agri¬ 
culture. We plead guilty to not having had our curi¬ 
osity sufficiently raised to throw away a shilling for an 
inspection. Besides these exhibitions, there was one 
of a grand double centrifugal railway, and, as the auc¬ 
tioneer’s catalogues say, “ other things too numerous 
to mention.” 
The day closed by a council dinner, at which Earl 
Hardwicke presided, and this does not seem to have 
been managed much better than the trial of imple¬ 
ments, and here we again quote from the Farmer. 
When we arrived at the County Hall at live, we found 
a large number of persons waiting at the iron gates in 
the pouring rain, among whom were most of the noble 
guests who were to be present, and who were uttering 
complaints both loud and deep of the treatment they 
experienced. Surely some waiting room could have 
been provided for the guests, as a shelter from the in¬ 
clemency of the weather. When the gates were at 
length opened, so eager were the parties to get under 
cover, that there was a complete rush, and the gates 
were borne forcibly open, every one making pell-mell 
for the small entrance gateway into the hall, which 
was insufficient to admit more than one or two persons 
at a time. The squeeze here was terrific, and there 
was no possibility of collecting the tickets ; some were, 
however, delivered here, and the others collected after¬ 
ward, but this afforded no check to the intrusion of 
uninvited guests. There were five lines of tables, 
which completely filled the body of the hall. The din¬ 
ner, which was neither cold nor hot, was a very 
wretched affair, there being a paucity of everything— 
provisions, waiters, plates, &c., &c. The only thing 
on which we can at all pass a commendation was the 
wine, which was cool and pleasant. 
To make amends for this, the speeches were un¬ 
usually good, and among them we see a report of that 
