J. DELAFIELD'S CHINESE HOGS.
"Floral Hall" was the name of a temporary though spacious structure of scantling and rough boards, in which were exhibited, in addition to a profusion of the flowers of the season, a display of Fruits and Vegetables whereof Rochester might well be proud. This city seems the natural centre of the finest fruit-growing district on the American continent—yes, in the whole world. Its high latitude secures the richest flavors, while the harsh northern winds, which elsewhere prove so baneful, are here softened by passing over lake Erie or Ontario, and a climate thus produced, which, for fruit, has no rival. Large delicious grapes of innumerable varieties; excellent peaches; delicate, juicy, luscious pears; quinces that really tempt the eye, though not the palate; and a profusion of fair, fragrant, golden, mammoth apples,—these were among the products of the immediate vicinity of Rochester exhibited in bounteous profusion. In the department of Vegetables also there were beets and turnips of gigantic size; several squashes weighing about one hundred and thirty pounds each; with egg-plants, potatoes, tomatoes, and other edibles, which were all that palate could desire. The fertility of western New-York is proverbial; but it was never more triumphantly set forth than in the fruit and vegetables exhibited at the State Fair.
Of butter, cheese, honey, (obtained without destroying the bees,) maple-sugar &c., the display was much better than we have remarked on any former occasion. And in this connection the rock salt from our own State works around Syracuse deserves honorable mention. New-York salt has been treated with systematic injustice by western consumers. In order to save a shilling or two on the barrel, they buy the inferior article produced by boiling instead of the far better obtained by solar evaporation; then they endeavor to make a New-York standard bushel of fifty six pounds do the work of a measured bushel of Turks Island weighing eighty pounds; and because the laws regulating the preservation and decomposition of animal substances will not thus be swindled, they pronounce the New-York salt impure and worthless. Now there is no purer, no better salt than the New-York solar; but, even of this, fifty-six pounds will not do the work of eighty. Buy the best quality, (and even this is dog cheap,) use the proper quantity, and no salt in the world will preserve meats better than this. The New-York solar salt exhibited at Rochester could not be surpassed, and that which had been ground has no superior in its adaptation to the table.
There were many tasteful Counterpanes and other products of female skill and industry exhibited, but the perpetual crowd in the 'halls' devoted to manufactures allowed no opportunity for their critical examination. Of stoves and ranges, heating and (let us be thankful for it, even at this late day) ventilating apparatus and arrangements, there was a supply; and so of daguerreotypes, trunks, harness, &c. &c. Nothing, however, arrested our attention in this hall but the specimens of Flax-Cotton and its various proportions exhibited by E. G. Roberts, assignee of Claussen's patents for the United States. We saw one intelligent influential citizen converted from skepticism to enthusiasm for flax-cotton by his first earnest examination. It will go inevitably. A cotton fibre scarcely distinguishable from Sea Island may be produced from flax by Claussen's process for six cents per pound; and a machine for breaking out the fibre from the unrotted stalk was exhibited by Mr. Clemmons of Springfield, Massachusetts, which is calculated materially to expedite the flax-cotton revolution. This machine renders the entire fibre, with hardly a loss of two per cent. as 'swingle-tow,' straight and wholly separated from the woody substance or 'shives,' at a cost which can hardly equal one cent per pound of dressed flax. Its operation is very simple, and any man who has seen it work a day may manage it. Its entire cost is from $125 to $200, according to size. It will be a shame to American agricultural enterprise if flax-cotton and linen are not both among our country's extensive and important products within the next three years.
The department of Agricultural Machinery and Implements was decidedly the most interesting of any. No other can at all equal it in the rapidity and universality of progress from year to year. Of Plows, there cannot have been less than two hundred on the ground, exhibiting a great variety of novel excellence. One with two shares, contrived to cut two furrows at once, seemed the most useful of any recently invented. The upper share cuts and turns the sward to the depth of five inches, which is immediately buried seven inches deep by the earth turned up by the deeper share. Since it is impossible to induce one farmer in twenty to subsoil, this, as the next best thing, ought to be universally adopted.
Seed-Sowers, Corn-Planters, Reapers, Fanning-Mills, Straw-Cutters, &c., &c., were abundant, and evinced many improvements on the best of former years. A Mower with which a man, boy, and span of horses, will cut and spread ten acres per day of grass, however heavy, on tolerably level land—both cutting and spreading better than the hand-impelled scythe and stick will do—was among the new inventions; also two threshers and cleaners, each of them warranted to thresh and nearly clean, by the labor of four men, a boy, and two horses, over one hundred bushels of wheat or two hundred bushels of oats per day. The testimony of candid citizens who had used them, and the evidence of our own senses, left no doubt on our mind of the correctness of these assertions. But we do not write to commend any article, but to call attention to the great and cheering truth which underlies them all. Agriculture is a noble art, involving the knowledge of almost all the practical sciences—chemistry, geology, climatology, mechanics, &c. It is not merely progressive, but rapidly progressing, so that fifty days' labor on the same soil produce far more grain or hay now than they did half a century ago. And every year is increasing and rendering more palpable the pressing need of a Practical College, wherein Agriculture, Mechanics, and the sciences auxiliary thereto shall be ably and thoroughly taught to thousands and tens of thousands of our countrymen, who shall in turn become the disseminators of the truths thus inculcated to the youth of every county and township in the country.
And thus shall Agriculture be rendered what it should be—not only the most essential but the most intellectual and attractive among the industrial avocations of mankind.
Horace Greeley
