numbers. The number of swine was not large, but there were some very fine specimens.

The show of horses was good. Among them were some very fine-looking easy-stepping animals; yet the track was so uneven, and extremely dry and dusty, that it was impossible to judge much of their speed or road qualities.

The show of vegetables was very good: that of potatoes was excellent. One squash, weighing a hundred and forty-four pounds, came down from Washington, and stood proudly among its neighbors, showing how things grow up there. We saw many looking wishfully at the plates of peaches and grapes in the collection of fruits. The splendid boxes of yellow butter, home-made cheese, and maple-sugar, were very nice. The ladies' department was very fine. The society held a meeting in the town-hall on the evening of the first day, at which Dr. Lucas of Chester gave an extended account of a business-trip to some of the Southern States. While it was interesting, it varied somewhat from an agricultural speech. Good music by the Hinsdale Band, and short speeches by other speakers, soon finished out the evening. The president presided with ease and grace. The dinners were provided in the society's dining-hall by the ladies of the Baptist Society, at a cost of only fifty cents per dinner, which was abundant and well-cooked. A former member of the State Board said, while eating his dinner and looking at the lady-waiters, "I think this would be a good place for a young man to come for a wife."

The president, C. Fay, Esq., and officers and members of the society, all worked as one family to make the exhibition worthy the patronage of the State; and the kind attentions extended to the delegate will be remembered with gratitude.

ELIJAH PERRY.

UNION.

I visited this comparatively young and vigorous society at its Annual Exhibition, held on its grounds at Blandford, Sept. 19, 20, and 21.

On arriving at the grounds, I was met by F. C. Knox, Esq., member of this Board, who very kindly gave such information in reference to the different departments of the show as was desired.

This society owns some ten acres near the centre of the town, very pleasantly situated, and commanding one of the finest views

in that section of the State. It has a commodious hall, barn, scales for weighing, and other conveniences. The hall has been enlarged the past season, giving the society good facilities for getting up dinners; a good dining-hall, with a good exhibitionhall above.

There was a large and fine show of stock, especially of working oxen and steers. Some fifty yoke of as fine-looking cattle were shown as one often sees at our fairs; Lewis C. Nye taking the lead with five yoke of grade Shorthorns from one to five years old, and weighing, in the aggregate, 14,455 pounds.

There was no exhibition of ploughing, neither was there any trial of working-oxen on the cart. I was sorry to see those noble oxen tested on the stone drag, with the enormous load of five tons. That, in my opinion, is not the place to show the training and good working-qualities of our oxen. There is no place in which the farmer uses his oxen as much as on the cart, and there is the place to exhibit the oxen at our fairs. If oxen will handle the cart with a proper load, draw, back, and set it where you want it, in good style, you may be sure they will draw all the load you should require of them on the drag; and I hope our societies will discard the stone drag at our fairs, and use the cart to show the noble qualities of the working-oxen.

Trained steers were exhibited, which did credit to themselves and to their trainers. Some very fine beef cattle were shown. The dairy stock was good. Some fine animals were shown in this class. H. K. Herrick, president of the society, exhibited Shorthorns; G. C. Rowley and F. C. Knox, herds of Jerseys; E. W. Boise, secretary of the society, exhibited Ayrshires. One of his cows had not been dry since 1870, and had made over four hundred pounds of butter in one year, besides the milk used in the family. Others had good animals on exhibition.

There were a few fine bulls of the different breeds. The show of sheep and swine was not large; but there were some good specimens of each.

The different varieties and breeds of poultry were shown in good numbers.

The exhibition in the hall was excellent. The collection of garden vegetables, grain, fruit, &c., was very fine. The ladies' contributions to this fair were worthy of great praise. Butter, cheese, bread, canned fruit, preserves, household manufactures, needle and ornamental work, worsted work, paintings, drawings, flowers, and, in fact, most every thing useful and ornamental, were shown.

At the proper hour we repaired to the dining-hall, where a goodly number of ladies and gentlemen assembled, and partook of

an excellent dinner got up by the society. The second day of this fair was devoted to the exhibition of horses, of which there was a very good show, consisting of stallions, brood-mares with their foals, one, two, and three year old colts, and gentlemen's driving-horses, with the inevitable horse-trot in the afternoon.

The third and last day was principally devoted to trotting, and an address by Rev. Washington Gladden, which closed the exercises of this fair.

This society is comparatively out of debt, seems to be doing a very good work, is well officered, with a good degree of interest in the welfare of the society.

NATHANIEL UPHAM.

HAMPDEN EAST.

The Quarter Centennial Exhibition of this society took place on the society's grounds, at Palmer, on Tuesday and Wednesday, Sept. 18 and 19, and was generally said to be one of the best exhibitions held for many years, especially for cattle, of which grade Durhams predominated. A new variety of field-corn, called "Compton's Early," grown by Mr. J. K. Knox, was shown. Much is claimed for this corn, both for early maturity and great yield; one hundred and eighty-one bushels to the acre having been ripened in seventy-six days after planting. The seed can be obtained, it is said, of Mr. James J. H. Gregory of Marblehead.

Mr. A. R. Maxwell of Monson exhibited a hundred and forty varieties of vegetables; and the State Primary School was a large contributor of vegetables, flowers, cattle, sheep, swine- and boys and girls.

Notwithstanding the comparative prosperity of this society, we could not help feeling, that, as a rule, we have too many small local societies, and that here, as elsewhere, union is strength. To us the advantages of one strong central society more than balance the disadvantages of longer distances from the place of exhibition, the chief argument for local associations. We can but think that three societies in Berkshire, eight in the river counties, six in Worcester, three in Plymouth, and two in Bristol, are more than the best interests of agriculture require. We may not be entirely orthodox in this respect; but the present financial condition of some of our numerous societies furnishes a striking contrast to the one society of the whole County of Essex, which has to-day a

fund of over twenty-five thousand dollars at profitable interest, and, as your delegate last year reported, is second to none in the Commonwealth as a model agricultural society.

EDMUND H. BENNETT.

FRANKLIN.

I was assigned as delegate to the Franklin Society, whose exhibition was held at Greenfield, Sept. 28, 29, and 30, 1877.

Arriving at Greenfield on the first day of the fair, I was kindly met at the station by the delegate to this Board, who at once took me to the grounds, and, by his courteous attentions, did much to render my visit pleasant and agreeable.

My first impressions were somewhat modified by dust, which was so omnipresent, that I hardly needed to be told that an excessive drought had prevailed for weeks, parching fields, drying up streams, and so affecting the quality of stock, that several of the best herds were not on exhibition. A Franklin-county farmer is so sensitive to the reputation of his stock, that, if he cannot exhibit it in its best condition, he will not show it at all. Hence the present exhibition in this department, although good, was not equal to that of some previous years. But a pair of Shorthorn oxen was shown, weighing 4,515 pounds, and three pairs by one contributor, weighing respectively 4,095, 4,010, and 3,790 pounds. From one herd of ten cows (Jersey) 2,198 pounds of butter had been sold in three months and a half, and some of the cows were dry a part of the time. One cow four years old claimed to have furnished her owner with twenty pounds of butter in one week. Seven calves had just been sold from a herd for prices ranging from fifty to seventy-five dollars each. The same owner had sold a heifer for four hundred dollars.

Jerseys, Shorthorns, Devons, and sented; and one herd was said to "Noah took with him into the ark." three hundred and fifty-one.

Ayrshires were well reprecontain as many kinds as Whole number exhibited

The exhibition of swine was the best ever made by the society, and largely consisted of thoroughbred families of young Poland Chinas, Chesters, Essexs, and Suffolks. One contributor showed eleven pigs, nine weeks and three days old, that averaged over fifty pounds each. There were twenty-four entries. One venerable hog was dignified with the name of "William Penn;" and the "Queen of Sheba " was present, with a litter of her pigs. We

question the taste of selecting names that have come down from the past immortalized by distinguishing qualities of character, and associating them with even so useful a brute as a hog.

The department of sheep was creditable, there being two hundred and eighty-one specimens on exhibition. One Cotswold

buck, weighing two hundred and seventy-five pounds, was shown with his progeny, each of which furnished over twenty-five pounds of wool the past year, and whose lambs averaged one hundred pounds. The Moody and Sankey" sheep, imported by the great evangelist, attracted much attention.

66

There were one hundred entries of poultry, representing the most desirable kinds.

The second day opened with a drizzling rain, at times culminating in hard showers, which, although very acceptable in laying dust, is one of the most unfortunate accompaniments of a cattle show, and interfered very much with the day's success. Nevertheless, there was a remarkably good show of horses; there being nearly one hundred of the various kinds for personal and family use exhibited, and some fifty colts.

The display in the hall was of a high order, both in its arrangement, and in the variety, quality, and aggregate of the several departments. The arrangement has for many years been under the direction of one man, whose good taste and skill were apparent in so grouping together articles of utility and beauty as to produce the most pleasing effect on the observer, and in so classifying the fruits, vegetables, fancy articles, &c., as to diminish the labor of the several committees.

There were four hundred and fifty entries of fruits, seventy of vegetables, two hundred and seventy-one of fancy articles, eightythree of domestic manufactures, fifty-three of bread, fifteen of butter, sixty-five of fine arts, and sixty-four of flowers.

The last day-being a benefit day, so called, and specially set apart for the "sports of the turf" - opened clear and pleasant; and, with a large crowd of people, saved the society from loss, and rendered the fair in a degree, financially as it certainly was in all other respects · a success.

The receipts of the year from all sources have been, as per Secretary's Report, $3,590.92; the expenditures for same time, including interest on society's debt of $2,000, $3,571.73; leaving a balance to the credit of the society of $19.19.

GEORGE M. BAKER.

5