AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST 
FOR THE 
ITar-m, Garden, and Household. 
“AGRICULTURE 18 TOE MOST HEALTHFUL, MOST USEFUL, AS1) MOST NOItLE EMPLOYMENT OF MAN.”-Washwgton. 
OEANGE JUDD COMPANY, 
Publishers and Proprietors, 345 Broadway. 
VOLUME XXXVIII.—No. 9. 
ESTABLISHED IN 1842. 
German Edition issued at the same rates as in English. 
TERMS: $1.50 per Annum in Advance, post-free ; 
Four Copies $5.— Single Number, 15 Cents. 
NEW YORK, SEPTEMBER, 1879. 
NEW SERIES—No. 392. 
FOR THE FAIR. — Drawn BY W. M. Cary. — Engraved for the American Agriculturist. 
It has come at last—the day for which the whole 
family have been looking, working, and preparing 
—the day of the Fair, and now on this bright 
September morning, when the air is filled with the 
odors of ripeness, and the whole country smiles 
with a bounteous harvest, this good farmer’s family 
are about starting for the Fair. It is the end of 
many days of careful thought and anxious prepara¬ 
tion. Charlie is afraid that the colt may be just too 
frisky, and forgetting the care given to the last 
grooming, may rumple a hair or two ; George is 
in doubt whether his young steers may not forget 
the many hours of careful training, and in the con¬ 
fusion of sights and sounds at the fair, fail to do 
i as well as they have already done in the yard this 
• morning; each of these has all he can do to care 
for his pets, and the loading up falls to the father 
1 an( I others. The potatoes, the turnips, the apples, 
the squashes, the pumpkins, and the chickens, 
must all be carefully stowed away. The bread, 
which the mother was up long-before daylight to 
hake, must have a safe place, and the bouquet to 
which the older daughter has given all the best 
flowers of her garden—that must be carried by 
hand. But there is the quilt—grandmother feels 
too old to enjoy the Fair, besides some one must be 
left at home l( to look after things ”—but she has 
made a quilt—one of those marvels in patch-work 
without which no well-regulated Fair can be com¬ 
plete. So make a place for the quilt in the load— 
for precious loving thoughts have been worked in 
with the stitches—and one of the best places too at 
the Fair, for grandmother will not make quilts for 
many more fairs. The family have not started, yet 
what a world of good has its preparation brought! 
Did not the father learn that in raising ruta-bagas 
and mangels fit to show, he must give each root a 
plenty of room ? Has not the older son, to beat 
his neighbor on apples, thinned that Baldwin tree 
at least three times during the season ? The son 
with the colt and the other with the young steers, 
what an amount of self control they have learned 
in trying to control their animals, and the mother, 
the daughters, and all have in' their work of pre¬ 
paration, already had much interesting occupation 
—and the enjoyment of the Fair is still to come. 
We hope that this picture may serve as a represen¬ 
tation of what will take place in many and many a 
farmers’ family this month and next, throughout 
our broad country. The isolation of the family is 
the great misfortune of our farm life. The bouse 
is placed as near as may be in the center of our 
large farms, and neighborly intercourse is difficult. 
Hence it is all the more necessary for the farmer 
and bis family to make the best of the oppor¬ 
tunity for social enjoyment afforded by the 
local fair. If the fair did only this, it would 
be worthy of encouragement; but it does much 
besides. These good people will go to the Fair, 
see much, meet many old friends, learn much, and, 
let us hope bring away pleasant recollections— 
and some premiums. But what they will take is 
far better than any premiums they will bring away 
—for they take their best—they show that they 
have a pride in the farmers’ life, and they show the 
best products of that life—not in the crops, the 
steers, the colt and chickens, the bread or quill, but 
in the very best of all products of the farm, the 
men and women, and the boys and girls, who will 
soon be men and women. These are the best pro¬ 
ducts of American farms, and they are such pro¬ 
ducts as the farms of no other country can show. 
Copyright, 1879, by Orange Judd Company. 
Entered at the Post Office at New York, N. Y., as Second Class Matter, 
