The New York herald. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1840-1920, 1853-07-07

AGRICULTURAL FARs.-The season Of agri-
cultural fairs is close at hand. Several are
already announced in the papers, and others
will follow until the first frosts of winter ter
inmate the farming year. State fairs in Indi-
ana, Vermont, Kentucky, New York, Ohio,
Pennsylvania, and Michigan, will be held during
September and Wisconsin and other States
will follow snit during the early portion Of o.
tober. Throughout this great country farmers
are looking anxiously to their crops and their
cattle, and counting beforehand the prizes
which it will 60 hard if they do not win. Tall
corn, and fat barley-mammoth pumpkins,
and succulent apples-antediluvia cabbages,
and monstrous turnips-are pointed out to
neighbors with defiant smile. Horses that
can draw nything short of q two-story house
COWS, such as Paul Potter sketched in the
corner of his autumn pieces-pigs grooming
under such huge layers Of fat that locomotion
is torture, and steady walk impossible
poultry of all grades and hues-geese, ducks
fowls, and, above all, pompous turkeys-have
risen into an Importance for which the animals
themselves are probably at loss to account
Food is strewed before them. in unusual profu-
sion. A judicious superintendent is exercised
over their diet and their creature comforts are
an object of anxious solicitude. For at our
agricultural shows the welfare of the animals
exhibited is as essential to success as the de-
velopement of their size, strength or physical
properties. No laurels are to be won by tor
turing dumb creatures with view to giving
them an abnormal appearance. We have no
poultry breeders who nail goose by the feet
to board within few inches Of a scorching fire,
cram it with food and deprive it Of water, in
order that its diseased liver may swell to an
inordinate size, and be served up as special
luxury in pate de foie gras. Such devices
would not be likely to be appreciated by the
judges at our agricultural fairs; nor indeed can
they fail to excite the utter disgust of every
man who is neither savage nor gourmand.
With us the test Of merit is the successful APP
plication of natures rules, and the develop
ment OF her resources. Her laws cannot be
violated with impunity. To foster and encour
age the prolific character of the soil. so that
every seed may germinate-to tend and educate
cattle. so that every quality they possess may
be cultivated to the highest degree-to promote
their health and well-being, in order to enable
them to fulfil their destiny of becoming whole
some human food-such are the first duties of
our farmers. With what fidelity, and conse-
quently with what success. they have been dis
charged is the only inquiry the agricultural
judges have to make, and the answer to that |
inquiry is the only basis on which prizes can be
awarded.
These shows and fairs have been in truth the
real instruments by which agriculture has been !
raised to its present degree of perfection. We !
can discover in the history Of agriculture, two |
progressive scales which have steadily kept I
pace with each other. The one is the social !
record OF farmers; the other the annals of farm |
ing. The one begins with a solitary husband
man. living in a rude hut, and steadily refusing |
to hold communication or Intercourse with his |
ncighbors. The other paints the same man
delving the earth with his solitary implement-a |
misshapen tool. Of wood iron or stone, halfway
between hoe and spade A little further
on we find the farmer slightly humanized but |
still too jealous Of his neghbor to suffer an in
specton Of his tolls. AT this stage, the spade |
has assumed more convenient shape, and an |
orthodox hoe has set up an Independent bust
ness. Next we find market established, and
farmers meeting on stated days talking with
honest bluntness of their craft, comparing
notes, and betting bushels Of corn on the rcla-
tive yield Of. their fields. This is great step,
and accordingly our agricultural record tells
If ploughs, harrows and fails; we lind manure
extensively employed; and some rude notion Of