Morning journal and courier., 1880-09-23

Farmers Fairs fn Pennsylvania and
 Elseyhere-Thoughts on Farming
 The Coming Fair i'm New Haven.
 ON THE CARS, Sept. 21 l To the Editor Of the JOURNAL AND COURIER;
 To-day is one of the brightest and most
 beautiful days of autumn. All day yesterday
 and to-day watched the busy farmers gath
 ering their crops of corn and buckwheat and l sowing their winter grain-for all through
 this section of Pennsylvania the wheat and
 rye are sown in the fall. In many places I
 noticed herds of stock being driven to the l local neighboring fairs, and at the hotel last
 night in Philadelphia could not get sinole | room, but had to lodge with another gentle | man, so crowded were they on account of the l State fair now in progress on the old Centen-
 nial grounds. Nothing seems so much to 1 gratlfy the farmer as to show his stock that l he has spent so much time and trouble to | carefully breed, and the wives are not a whit behind In their desire to display their part of 1 the produce of the farm and household And nothing is more to be commended Such healthy rivalry stimulates to greater ef- 1 forts Tor the future, and thus there is prog l ress year after year. Every railroad station 1 has it's posters out for excursion rates to and l from these exhibits at the astonishingly low 1 rates of flare one wayn including l a ticket of admission to the fair grounds as we'll Many and many time have I attend
 
 owners of the stock by the hour, and ob- tained as much information (gratis) as if I were one of the largest stock breeders in the country. l am very fond of these shows and can enter into the conversation of the farmers with quite as much spirit as if vera farmer myself to-day. Nineteen years of my early life were spent in the healthy occu- patton, and had myself, and many more of my acquaintances, followed the advice of our elders the world to-day would have been quite as well off and ourselves also 'sAll that glitters is not gold" and the fine show that to the young mans mind appears at the thought of a mercantile life is often found to contain good deal of disappointment and alloy. Not a week passes, and I might almost say not day, but what an applica- ton 1n some form is received by some one for a situation in our line of business but the facts are so barren of probable success. when stated by myself in person, that few care to carry the matter farther And they are wise- l fully believe that the success of our country is in farming more than any other department, which of course includes stock-ralslng and all attendant occupations And just here beg to state a fact which few who live in New England are conversant with, namely, that nearly every acre of cul- t1Vated land in Connecticut will produce as much of any ordinary kind of grain as an acre Tn the far West, the difference of profit bslnS that considerable expense for fertili- zation is required here, and there none. But a stronger point is overlooked-for I have been there and seen what state per sonally-which is that those who go from here there are willing to Cor at least dol s'put up With far more inconvenience and trial than they would at home If they would only consider this before going and settle the fact firmly, they could buy hundred acres of land within fifty miles of New Haven and make as much of a fortune there as if they went two thousand miles towards the sunset. But no, they would get the Yankee cousins visits, with three hundred dollar bugg1es and wife clad in silk and velvet, and be so much ashamed of their homespun that the experiment can never Gas rule) be made success. And yet nineteen out of every twenty of your most intelligent readers will add their testimony to the truth of this state ment
 But I have word more about fairs. Soon we are to have one in New Haven, and it is of great importance, for numerous reasons. hat we all try to make this one grand suc- ;ess Our company intend to put on exhibit some Of the best of our productions, not so much for an advertisement as for the general good, to make the whole thing triumph said not altogether for advertisement and 'ruthfully, for about nine-tenths of all of our goods are sold wholly outside the State of Connecticut, and we would gain little in 'hoWlng our goods there to help our sales in 1ortland or Minneapolis; but if all the fac orles in the State would bring from their hops the various kinds of goods they pro- luce and show the goods they make in their -ar1ous stages of manufacture as they nro- tress from the raw material to their finished tate, and send some of their employees to ex- 'lain how and by what means tEeir goods re perfected, what show we would have in he old State House at New Haveni Now ct us see who will be willing to vie with the thers ln the extent of their display