86 
WISCONSIN STATE AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY. 
The display of carriages was good. 
The Berlin Woolen Mills exhibited a display of cloths, cassimeres, 
etc., they may justly be proud of. 
The display of domestic manufactures was not at all up to the 
times. 
The sewing machine department has always attacted much atten¬ 
tion, and I regret tnat only one company exhibited. Nv ilcox & 
Gibbs refused to join in an agreement not to show, and their ma¬ 
chines were surrounded by a crowd all the time. I carefully exam¬ 
ined the “New Wilcox & Gibbs Automatic Sewing Machine,” on 
exhibition, and found the following points of especial interest: The 
automatic tension, the feed, the feed surface, the stitch adjustment, 
the spool holder, its ease and quietness, its simplicity, and its su¬ 
perior finish. I regard it as the best machine for family use, and 
recommend for it a medal and honorable mention. 
DEPARTMENT J. —FINE ARTS. 
BY r. A. LYD8TON, SUPERINTENDENT. 
The brief time intervening between my appointment, as superin¬ 
tendent of the Fine Arts Department, and the exhibition, rendered 
it impossible for me to realize to any great extent my desires to 
make the exhibition of that department, in every way worthy of the 
occasion. If our expectations were not fully realized on account 
of unforeseen difficulties, yet, I was so far successful by the aid of 
citizens of Milwaukee that I feel strongly encouraged in my hopes, 
that this department will become a distinctive and permanent 
branch of your society. In view of the fact that msthetical culture 
is direct in the line of the advancement and well being of the whole 
people, and as the study of the Fine Arts has taken, of late years, 
a broad and liberal range in the education of the masses, it cannot 
but be regarded as a matter meriting attention. The exhibition of 
a painting wrought by the artistic hand, under the inspiration of 
genius, having for its subject, some grand and ennobling idea, can¬ 
not fail to produce in the mind of any intelligent observer ideas 
and emotions calculated to benefit his own life. Believing, as I do, 
