AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST, 
Q39 
furnished on application to John McGowan, 
Esq., Assistant Secretary of the United 
States Agricultural Society, 160 Chestnut 
Street, (Rooms of the Philadelphia Agricul¬ 
tural Society,) or by addressing the Secre¬ 
tary at Boston. 
Marshall P. Wilder, President. 
William S. King, Secretary. 
VALUE OF AGRICULTURAL EXHIBITIONS- 
HINIS OF GETTING THEM UP. 
Though this is not the season for Agricul¬ 
tural Exhibitions, Shows, or Fairs, (we make 
a distinction in the three,) it is time to begin 
to think about them—to make arrangements 
and to get ready for them. It is high 
time that the place should be chosen, and 
the various Boards of Managers should at 
once attend to getting them properly adver¬ 
tised. A large, attractive show-bill should 
be posted in every public place in the coun¬ 
ty, and a reserve be kept on hand to supply 
the place of any that may be torn down or 
defaced by accident or otherwise. We shall 
this year have any quantity of flaming po¬ 
litical documents put up to attract public 
gaze. Let the Agricultural show-bills eclipse 
all these in size, beauty and attractiveness. 
We think fifty, one hundred, or even two 
hundred dollars expended on this single item 
money well laid out. It matters not how 
large or good an exhibition may be, it will 
have comparatively little influence, if the 
masses be not called out to attend it. We 
repeat, then, get out good advertisements, 
both in the form of show-bills, and in the lo¬ 
cal papers, and let this be done-sufficiently 
early to secure an accumulation of interest 
and enthusiasm. Another suggestion : offer 
liberal premiums for valuable exhibitions of 
a few leading articles. Let these be large 
enough to call out a spirited competition. 
Again, give horse-racing and theatricals 
of that character a wide berth. They repel 
a large class of conservative, intelligent and 
refined persons, who will not visit a race¬ 
course, even though baptized with the name 
of an Agricultural Show. 
We commenced this article to introduce 
an extract from an address delivered by 
Daniel Webster, at the Annual Exhibition of 
the Norfolk Agricultural Society at Dedham, 
Mass., in 1849. It brings out and expresses 
some of the advantages of Agricultural As¬ 
sociation, and we commend it to an attentive 
perusal. Mr. Webster said : 
“ The principle of association—the prac¬ 
tice of bringing men together bent on the 
same general end, uniting their intellectual 
and their physical efforts to that purpose, is 
a great improvement in the present age. We 
saw it years ago—perhaps I might say cen¬ 
turies ago. It began in the corporations of 
the old world. It began in the professional 
associations of the world—in the legal, the 
medical, and the theological. But it was long 
in that country and in this, before the prin¬ 
ciple of combination came to be acted upon 
in the great system of Agriculture—before it 
was brought to that pursuit of life which is 
the main pursuit of life—before agricultur¬ 
ists were brought to act in unison. And the 
reason is obvious. In the city, communities 
strive together. The merchants and ship¬ 
owners can come together at the sound of a 
bell. The mechanics, generally, living in 
populous places, may do the same. They 
have the opportunity of interchanging senti¬ 
ments every hour, and what one knows, all 
know, and what is the experience of one, all 
soon become acquainted with. But the ag¬ 
ricultural population is scattered over all the 
fields of the country. Their labors and their 
toils are in some degree isolated. They are 
in the midst of the hills and the valleys and 
in the recesses of every solitary forest. 
There is no ’Change for them to assemble 
upon at noon. There are no coffee-houses, 
there are no Athenaeums for them to meet 
at in the evening and converse on their in¬ 
terests. 
“ It has, therefore, become essential to the 
best interests of the farmers of the common¬ 
wealth, that these annual fairs should be es¬ 
tablished, and that they should be universal¬ 
ly attended. And, as his excellency, the 
governor, has remarked, it is not so much on 
account of what is to be learned by the most 
eloquent discourse in the public houses, or 
at these establishments, as from the meet¬ 
ing of men together who have the same gen¬ 
eral object, who wish for improvement in 
the same general pursuits of life, that they 
may converse with one another—that they 
may compare with each other their experi¬ 
ence, and that they may keep up a constant 
communication. It is in this point of view, 
in this greatly practical point of view, that 
these annual fairs are of importance. 
“ Why, gentleman, every man obtains a 
very great portion of all that he knows in 
this world by conversation. Conversation, 
intercourse with other minds, is the general 
source of most of our knowledge. Books do 
something, but every man has not the oppor¬ 
tunity to read. It is conversation that im¬ 
proves. If any one of us is here to-day, 
learned, or unlearned, should deduct what he 
has learned by conversation from what he 
knows, he would find but little left, and that 
little not of the most valuable kind. It is 
conversation—it is the meeting of men face 
to face, and talking over what they have 
common in interest—it is this intercourse 
that makes men sharp, intelligent, ready to. 
communicate to others, and ready to receive 
intimations from them, and ready to act 
upon those only which they receive by this 
oral communication. 
“ Therefore, if there were not a thing ex¬ 
hibited—if there were not a good pair of 
steers, nor a fine horse, nor likely cow in 
the whole country, if there be society—if 
there be ladies, wives and daughters—if 
there be those connected with the tillage of 
land, I say that these annual meetings are 
highly important to progress in the art to 
which they refer. I come here as a poor 
farmer, to meet with other better farmers, 
ready to receive from them any intimations 
their experience may have taught, and desi¬ 
rous only of suggesting something for their 
reflection which now or hereafter, may draw 
their attention, and draw it usefully to some¬ 
thing in the agricultural art.” 
THE CHINESE LING, OR WATER CHESTNUT. 
We are under obligations to Messrs. B. B. 
Rudding & Co., editors of the California 
State Journal, for a package of curiosities, 
and also to the Pacific Express Company, 
for kindly forwarding the same. The pack¬ 
age contained half a dozen dark colored nuts 
—if that be the appropriate name—which 
bear a striking resemblance to a cross be¬ 
tween a bull and a ram’s head. Our artist 
has drawn and engraved the following cut, 
which gives an idea of the present appear¬ 
ance of one side of the nut. The reverse 
side is similar to the one here shown. 
The figure is exactly the size of the nut 
which it represents. In the centre it is 
about $ of an inch in thickness. We give 
the following extracts from an editorial in 
the State Journal of May 10th : 
“ This curious nut, looking like the horns 
of a bull, is to be found in a cooked state, on 
the stall of almost every Chinese vender of 
edibles. Whether they are cooked before 
being shipped from China, or whether the 
Chinese are unwilling to give “outside bar¬ 
barians” fruit in its natural state, we are un¬ 
able td determine ; but we know that after a 
search of several months we have only found 
one place where the uncooked nuts can be 
purchased, and they are so damaged by age 
and mould that there is no possibility of ma¬ 
king them grow ; nevertheless, we ask for 
Ling every time we pass a Chinese store, 
hoping to find some that can be successfully 
used for seed. 
We have no doubt but that the attention 
of most of our readers who have passed 
through the Chinese settlements, has been 
attracted by little pairs of black looking 
horns, having the appearance of tovs carved 
out of ebony. These horns are the fruit 
of an aquatic plant, called Trapa bicornis, 
by botanists, Ling, by the Chinese, Cha- 
taigne d'eau, by the French, and by us, fol¬ 
lowing the French, the Water Chestnut. 
Persons interested can see them anywhere 
along I street, or if they prefer it, in our of¬ 
fice. 
We translate and condense the following 
article in regard to the plant and the use 
of its fruit, from the 16th of February num¬ 
ber of the Paris L'Illustration, Journal Uni - 
versel. 
The Chinese are celebrated for employing 
as food a great variety of aquatic plants— 
plants which are in that densely populated 
country the more precious because they 
require but little care for their multi¬ 
plication, and render useful and subservi¬ 
ent to the interests of man, places which are 
entirely unfit for any other kind of agricul¬ 
ture. 
Among the most valuable aquatic plants 
