Arizona citizen., 1872-09-21
THE EXPOSITION OF 1876.

In his report for 1871, the Commis- sioner of Agriculture devotes nineteen pages to the relation of the Centen- nial exposition to agriculture. He reviews the subject as the states man should, and especially shows how much France, and to some ex- tent other nations, have done to in crease in variety, quality and amount the products of the soil, and that, too, principally by the agency of national exhibitions. He clearly shows how all classes have been largely benefited by this means.
 In addition to the usual features. of such expositions, the Commissioner treats of others especially suitable at the coming one. Herewith we present a few most interesting paragraphs, which give the subject in its broad and comparative bearings upon cen- tury of national growth, and which can but awaken a desirable interest in all live and spirited men and women:
 The memorial character of the cen- tennial exhibition suggests retro spective view of the progress of agri- culture, of which we should seek in every way to make adequate presen- tation. In general way this could be strikingly exhibited by maps show ing the area of cultivation in 1776 and 1876. At the former date, the western boundaries of the thirteen original States were wild and sav- age frontier, and the emigration of adventurous spirits of the wilderness was to western New York and eastern Ono. Then the country was bounded westward by Mississippi; now 1t ex- tends from ocean to ocean. Twenty five or more States which will bear their treasures to the exposition then had no existence Then the wolf's long howl was heard on shores which now bear some of the most important commercial cities of the world, and this vast empire with its inestimable riches of every sort has been conquer ed from the wilderness by agricultural industry.
 Taking an idea from the Paris ex- position, would it not be profitable to have department exhibiting his tory of American agricultural labor ! It has to go back but hundred years for its antiquities. Would it not be pos sible to show the blows, hoes, shovels, rakes, axes, forks, and other agricultural implements of cur revolutionary fath- CTS, together with the various trans formations they have undergone in attaining the most approved forms of the present time! If authentic specimens of antiquity cannot be found they may be reconstructed in accordance with tradition, aided by such hints as can be borrowed from remote Sleepy Hollow regions, which are hundred years behind the age. Farming tools as rude as those of our ancestors are still used in the cultiva- ton of the soil in countries to which American agricultural implements are not exported. It will not be surpris- ing if such an exhibition as we have sue gested should be contributed by and claimed as a triumph of manu- featuring industry. In presence of 1t the American farmer and artisan may clasp hands, and agree in recognizing that they have a common and undis- tinguishable history, progress, and prosperity.
 At the Paris exposition the State of Illinois exhibited 8 western farmers home-such comfortable wooden building, with modern conveniences, as any well-to-do farmer may own which was set up with other types of residences and palaces in the Champs de Mars, and attracted @ great deal of attention. It would have added some what to the interest to have had set up beside it the chinked and daubed log-cabi of the first settler, with its chimney of sticks and mud, clap board roof, puncheon floor, and door with the string out; and its suc- cessor, the comfortable two-story house, built of squared logs, with glass windows, and other modern con- veniences. Such a record of the pro- gressive imnroyement in rural homes