88 
Wisconsin State Agricultural Society. 
tries side by side, it would be very desirable, and the awarding com¬ 
mittees will be able to decide without so great a liability to error, 
and with half the labor. 
Winter apples, having attained neither size or color, owing to the 
earliness of the fair, did not appear well, nor could they be recog¬ 
nized by good judges. Although the apple-crop throughout the 
State was small, 3 T et the specimens from the interior were fairer 
than usual, and a good judge wrote me that nowhere east had he 
seen apple-trees so well loaded as along the lake-shore counties of 
Wisconsin. 
I hope the condition of the treasury will permit our offering the 
same amount of premiums as two years ago, and to improve the 
quality of the exhibition, and give us plenty of room. I would 
recommend that exhibitors be restricted to thirty varieties of apples. 
The only drawback the American Pomological Exhibition seemed 
to have upon us, was to take away many of our best committee-men, 
whose places it was hard to fill. 
DEPARTMENT H.— Machinery. 
BY R. D. TORREY, SUPERINTENDENT. 
In submitting a report as superintendent of this important de¬ 
partment, for the fair of 1875, I am aware that it will be no easy 
task to advance any new thoughts or suggestions of value that have 
not already been presented by abler and more experienced minds 
for the consideration of this Society. 
Justice as well as courtesy requires me to say that much, if not 
all of the success heretofore attending the exhibitions in this de¬ 
partment have been attributable to the efficiency of my predecessor, 
Major Rufus Cheeny, who had by years of experience and adapta¬ 
bility, succeeded in making the displa} 1 ' of machinery one of the 
most attractive features of the State fairs. 
Upon assuming the duties of this position, I found that while the 
exhibition of field machinery and implements would be creditable 
alike to the manufacturers and the society, there was little if any 
prospect of power-hall having enough machinery in operation to 
