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have national peace, at least the government supply trains may fortify the rear of our advancing armies, and all may draw from the great store-house which Nature's bounty and man's intelligent labor have provided.

We are, indeed, a favored community; are prosperous; have been protected; have had the blessings of our good government; have been, permitted to live upon this great central channel of communication, between the tide-waters of the Atlantic and the far West; have enjoyed our homes and property unmolested; have been permitted to cultivate our farms as heretofore, and enjoy the reward of our labor.

Indeed, a great nation like this cannot be poor, where so many of the people are employed in the field, knowing what they do, and why they do it, and when the earth remunerates their labors abundantly-especially as our more liberal treatment of mother earth makes her more liberal to us. Husbandmen may rely upon a bountiful supply when faithful to her require

ments.

With the experience of the past, and the amount of intelligence now applied to the farming interests, the business is performed more easily, more thoroughly, and the occupation made respectable; so that it is no longer incompatible with the character of a gentleman--the ladies to the contrary notwithstanding; because farmers are no longer jammed so full of the law of gravitation that they do not get above the ground, neither are they so light as to swing in air. But with firm purpose, with enlarged views of their vocation, they move forward not to harvest the few small kinds of grain, the dwarfish unpalatable fruit-the very plain material furnished by the hand Divine with which to begin life--but the endless varieties of improved growth, perfected, enlarged, delicious, and beautiful which surrounds us--the result of ages of laborious, diligent investigation.

We obey the dictates of our common being, when we meet neighbor with neighbor, citizen with citizen, man with man, to mingle in one common brotherhood for mutual benefit, to exchange views, to compare opinions upon the leading important interests, whereby we are mutually improved. Annual fairs are given as a means through which to accomplish these results, and their continuance proves their usefulness. All classes of labor are here recognized and encouraged in useful and beautiful productions. To hold out sufficient inducements yearly to bring together all articles of merit and general usefulness, is the object of such gatherings as this.. It is the most efficient way of bringing home to a scattered agricultural population, yearly, whatever there is to facilitate their work and increase their happiness by improving their condition.

Is there improvement anywhere? Is there agricultural progress anywhere? Is there agricultural advance anywhere? Has any article. been invented, grown or fabricated by ingenious, skilful hands the past year? If so, you will find it here, and can take its availability home with you. Such is the design of the society.

Our own exhibition, to-day, far surpasses any previous one. As to the very large number of entries in all the departments, and the various kinds of articles on exhibition, are the result of improved concentrated labor. A combination of thought and labor, of art, of cultivated taste-that which

was good before appears better, which is creditable to you and to the county.

The display of many articles, for beauty of finish and ingenious construction, evinces requisite taste, showing marked improvement in those things which constitute superior intelligence.

Were it not for such organizations as this, many articles of great utility would be furnished with lock and key at home, to the injury of community. All the articles brought together, of superior workmanship and taste, on occasions like this, where the useful and the beautiful are harmoniously blended, ought to receive encouraging rewards, such as are due to superior labor, thereby stimulating noble effort by competition; enabling us to ap propriate and more fully appreciate the rich blessings which are spread around us; to acquire a higher knowledge of our duties as citizens, and means of happiness.

Having made these very general remarks, we invite your attention more especially to our own county.

Among the innumerable multitude who people the past, we seek our own progenitors, drawn towards them by an irresistable sympathy indeed; they are our other-selves, and we treasure up every memento of their fortunes.

To escape religious persecution, 3000 Germans came to this country about the year 1709, a portion of whom settled in Pennsylvania. The residuc ascended the Hudson and found their way into the rich valley of the Schoharie, about the year 1713. Some disagreement soon after arising among them, twelve of these families separated from their companions and planted themselves down upon these flats, about the year 1720. No general settlement of the county, by a farming population, can be placed anterior to this. The little band of pilgrims brought with them neither wealth nor power; but they planted and cultivated in a rich soil, the principles of civil and religious freedom, for the first time in this valley. "Not as the conqueror comes," they, the true-hearted, came, and soon the wilderness began to be replaced with farming land, and the sides of the hills became dotted with dwellings of improved life-a little home of "Arcadian innocence”—the beginning of what we now are. By their indomitable perseverance, struggling with and triumphing over great deprivation, they ga thered around them the means of an humble living. Their subsequent history gives a peculiar character to this portion of the State. Here was the theatre of two successive wars. Several times the settlements, with the fruits of their toil, were by savage enemies destroyed; their houses, barns and grain stacks consumed; their horses and cattle killed or driven off, and their own numbers sadly lessened. The events of all the wars of this country, down to the close of the revolution, nowhere else raged more furiously, or were marked with more bitter and entire desolation;

"But from the sods of grove and glen

Rose ranks of lion-hearted men,

To battle to the death."

The historian has gathered and preserved the scattered mementoes of those early days, and of the first settlers in those memorable "German Flats." A rehearsal of what those pioneers suffered and accomplished has made

a warm seat at many a fireside, and finds in every rural heart a home. They did not persecute the natives to conduct them to gold and silver mines, but soon the gloomy forest shadows gave place to sunshine and the up-turned field, astonished, found itself covered with unaccustomed luxuriant growth. Undismayed by difficulties, unchanged by fortune, they toiled on till "they put all enemies under their feet," and gained a great victory over hardships and circumstances.

On our pleasant valley rest, around these hills and mountains cling like gathering mists, their Germanic fortitude, perseverance and success. You have noticed that the allwise dispenser of great gifts, deals them out sparingly to individuals and localities. Every section of country has a specialty, is better adapted to some interests-so with our county.

It has been said that at the time of the Erie canal, in 1825, the property of the county would not have sold for more than enough to pay the indebtedness existing, and as the new enterprise opened to the country west a market, the farmers of the county could not successfully compete in growing grain, as our elevated land was not so well adapted to grain-growing as to some other branch of farming, consequently the farmers of the county bent their energies in the right direction, changed the farming interest of the county to dairying. How well the county is adapted to this system of farming, and how well the people of the county have prospered, by adapting the productions to the soil, can be best known by the amount of value of what is produced. How well the county has yielded up to her rural sons and daughters-her wealth! we can readily see all about us-in our many prosperous towns and villages, in the improved manner of living, in homes made beautiful, the embelishments surrounding which mark the age, the progress, the intellectual culture and the refinement of the inhabitants of all countries, where the substantial comforts, the conveniences and the ornamental, encourage each other. Also, in shady yards and smiling gardens, in substantial and convenient buildings, in your fields made inviting by being covered with profitable and superior herds.

You are in possession of established and merited prosperity. In a county so well adapted to the production of cheese, with the perfected system of manufacture (and our good name), we have a future full of hopeful prosperity, which will enable us to help forward the great and varied interests which take their place around us.

The county now takes her place among the counties of our great State, to which her natural resources and wealth justly entitle her.

The efforts to spread intelligence and to bring to the cultivation of the earth greater knowledge, will ultimately enrich the soil from which government and great men grow.

Men are appreciated and respected as they are made capable to discharge, understandingly, the responsibilities of life, and make the land of their fathers better for having lived in it. In a land like ours, where the people are the government, we have duties to perform other than to till the ground. We are required to be well informed; we are required to cultivate ourselves as well as our farms; we are required to do what within us lies to uphold and advance the great interests with which we stand connected; we are required to stand by the institutions and the govern

ment under which we have grown great and prosperous; we are required to defend our righteous government against enemies within and without, as the inheritance of our fathers; and whatever destiny awaits her, may the substance remain, as the circulating gold coined and re-coined many times, still serves the purpose for which it was designed; though the image and superscription be changed, may the metal have the true ring in it.

The times suggest a few thoughts and we will relieve you. We remember the noble deeds of those who have fallen, binding their souls and ours as the cords of life are centered in the human heart, who have mingled their tide of life in one rich stream during our great national conflict, to maintain the Union, the Constitution and the laws.

The principle is now settled, that no set of men can put the saddle on this nation's back and ride out and in the Union at pleasure. The spirit which animated the first settlers of whom we have been speaking, still stands as outposts to guard the sacred compact in this night of gloom, to see that no set of men throws overboard the cargo, and runs on some rocky shore the good old ship Union and terminates the voyage.

To us the Union has but one domestic hearth; to us it admits of no division. In the veins of our people flow northern and southern blood-how shall it be separated? The old flag, with its stripes made wider and its stars more firmly set and brilliant, will be sufficient to wrap up the people, with all their great and varied interests, in its ample folds again. God grant that it be before our next annual fair.

JEFFERSON.

G. W. PINE, President.

Our fair was a decided success, the receipts paying premiums and expenses, and leaving a desirable balance to meet demands for building and improvement of grounds.

¿♦ The board of managers can confidently meet their own wishes by increasing the prizes offered, being assured that they will be sustained by the industrial interests of our county.

The weather was all that could have been desired, and the attendance was large; order and harmony prevailed, affording a desirable opportunity for instructive and friendly interchange of sentiment between residents of the different towns of the county as well as with "friends from abroad,” many of whom availed themselves of this opportunity to witness the accumulation of our evidences of agricultural, mechanical and domestic enter prise.

Our show of stock was not equal to that of some of our former exhibitions; I regret to say that many of our breeders of "Pure Bred Cattle" did not exhibit this year. The stock in competition was good, but much more should have been upon the grounds, more however, were shown than

'at our fair of 1862.

The show of sheep exhibited an increase in numbers from last year, the quality of those on exhibition could rarely be excelled.

and

The exhibition of swine was meager, a falling off from any previous year in numbers, but of excellent quality. No animals we raise make bet ter returns for efforts to "improve the breed" than swine, and it is desira

ble that our whole producing population be convinced of this fact by liberal exhibitions of the "better breeds" at our fairs. Our county has taken the first prizes in this department for the past three years (including the present), at our State fairs. I can see no good reason why, having the best hogs in the State, we should not have a desirable show in this class in our own county.

The mechanical department was well sustained, a large variety of farm and domestic implements, including a liberal variety of mowers and reap ers, being on exhibition. Much credit is due the enterprising manufacturers, Messrs. J. & G. Lord & Co., of Watertown, for their liberal efforts to increase the interest in our annual exhibition by supplying instruments of their own manufacture, most of which are of superior excellence and workmanship. The same statement is true of Messrs. H & E. F. Cooper, Mr. J. G. Harbottle and others. A large increase of samples from the family loom was apparent, and elicited much observation. Floral hall had its due quota of attractions. The dairy and kitchen garden were liberally repre sented by choice specimens from their enclosures.

The show of fine and serviceable horses was such as might have been expected for Jefferson county, their number exceeding that of any former exhibition of the society, and their quality truly creditable to our section of the State.

The large assemblage of people to witness the exhibition of horses in harness, on the second day, during said exhibition was highly gratified with the exhibition of the truly and deservedly celebrated masters of the "trotting ring," "George M. Patchen" and "Henry Clay," by the kindness of their gentlemanly owners Messrs. Waltermier and Dater.

On leaving the track the following resolution was unanimously adopted by the spectators:

Resolved, That Messrs. Waltermier and Dater have our thanks for the entertainment afforded by the voluntary exhibition of their celebrated steeds, Patchen and Clay.

At the close of the exhibition Miss Eva Wood, of Ellisburgh, (a Miss of 10 years) was introduced to the audience by Supt. Mather, mounted upon her black steed, said to have been trained from coltship by her rider, and to the admiration of all exhibited skill in horsemanship seldom witnessed In maturer years; causing horse to lie down and rise at pleasure, turning curves of different angles at full speed and with varying velocity, guiding her horse with an ease and grace seldom witnessed.

A special committee was appointed to report upon the merits of the exhibition, who awarded her a prize of $5 and society's diploma. At the close of the exhibition of horses the company repaired to agricultural hall, and being called to order by Supt. Webb, exercises were commenced with prayer by Rev. Mr. Cole, of the State street church, Watertown, after which the president introduced Hon. John Stanton Gould, of Columbia county, to the audience who addressed the society upon the theory and practice of making butter; the grasses upon which the cows should feed to produce the greatest yield; treatment of cows in order to realize desirable returns; the different breeds of cows and their comparative merits for dairy purposes, etc., etc., to which ́ the progressive farmers and their wives listened with marked attention.