Waterbury evening Democrat., 1904-08-16
SEEING THE FAIR
 IN DETAIL

Duck Waiting to Be Named-BattI
 With Mice = Denizens of Virginia
 Forests--Huee Fish From the Old
 Dominion Coast = Virginia Woods.
 Nature as an Artst-Pictures In the
 Grain of California Woods - Mme.
 Melba Peculiarly Favored-Lessons
 In Forestry For Any Who May Wish
 to Study-A Grand Picture Arcade
 of Forests and Mountains.
 ESPECIAL CORRESPONDENCE BY
 MARK BENNITT.1
 It takes two years to grow an oyster that you can gulp down with expres sions of delicious satisfaction in two seconds. Virginia extols her oysters at the worlds fair. To most people oysters are just oysters fresh, medi- ocre and too long out of the water or off the ice. But in Virginia oysters are known by their habitat or the com pany they keep. Water is to the oyster what soil is to fruit-it makes the quail ity. From Mobjack bay comes sweet and luscious bivalve that has particu- lar flavor and favor. York river, Severn river, Elizabeth river, Carter's creek, Lynnhaven, James river, Broad bay and Hampton Roads are all trade names in Virginia oysterdom.
 Virginia has spent $5,000 making models of her oysters, big and little, and representing the product of every rivers mouth, bay, bayou and sound along her oyster strewn coast. The min ute you begin to ask questions in the Virginia exhibit you plunge into new realm of thought and discover world of commercial activity of which per haps you may never have heard.
 Waiting identification is one mag niicent specimen of wild duck In the Virginia exhibit, Palace of Forestry, Fish and Game. It resembles mallard in it's markings, but is twice as large. Two of them were captured at Virginia Beach, on the back bay, and to date they are new specimens in bird lore. The Smithsonian institution at Wash ington has one of the pair undergoing study, and the other is at the worlds fair for sportsmen to see and admire a wild duck in all it's racteristics, but as large as goose.
 ''Oh, there's Hampton Roads, where the battle of Gettysburg was fought, :" said one lady as she looked at the great painting above the Virginia exhibit. But, then, one can't know every thing and raise family of children to help keep the world humming and to fight the nations battles in times of stress and trouble.
 The battle is on in the Virginia ex- hibit. All along the holdings in the upper part of the display may be seen little portholes from which the enemy is doing it's mischief. The enemy is an army of mice, which is eating the rice and other decorations, and sad havoc they are making. Traps are in big demand, and every catch is fat 6ne.
 The wild animals and game birds of Virginia make many sportsman halt fin his mad rush to do the fair in q week The black bear, the lynx, deer, gray fox, coon, eagle, big blue heron, English pheasants and bobwhites all dwell together in harmony, for they are stuffed, and stuffing is an antidote for quarrelsomeness
 The jewish rarely gets into Virginia waters. Only three of them are known to have been caught in hundred years, and that experience would tax the patience of any fisherman. Num- Der three is the one you see here. The 1rr seems to be to have jolly time as he rolls through his ocean life and in death to be skinned for razor strops and shoe strings, is one of the star fea- fures of this fish display. Virginia, lthe mother of presidents, mothers a great many other ornamental and use full quantities.
 You get into the Virginia woods whichever way you go, and you are loath to get out of them. In the west end are things of wood in thousand forms, from machines that do the fam fly washing or the days churn1ng with the pressure of the little finger to an array of clothespins that look like the aurora borealis. , In the east end are the natural specfmens-an arboretum chopped down and sawed up. Every useful wood of Virginia has recogni- ftion, and to call attention to one of her greatest sons, Jefferson, the trees of the forest have spelled his name. Here it is as cut from the trees with bark all on.
 , 1'Stop and register! Stop and see na- ture's art galleryr' cried voice, the voice of a man of middle years skilled in woodcraft and in love with the shady solitudes of the forest depths. The voice came from the California exhibit.
 I was glad that I stopped, for here are curious things enough to stock a museum. Mr. Thomas Hatch will show you portrait of Mme. Melba delicately done by nature in walnut grain. A red wood burl has the size and shape of a fat porker A Kansas man brought an ear of corn and placed it in, the pigs mouth. An old Dutchman getting i,.ord~z f,,. e,y,aoIxes h11r1