gh not
exactly a tiller himself, he is supposed to have had a good deal to do
with the tiller department of that historic ship. Several of our folks
have, from time to time, studied agriculture on New England town farms;
which explains the passion I always had for such attractive out-of-door
sports as stump-pulling, laying stone wall, and drinking very hard cider
in the shade.

Being down at my uncle's this week, I have attended the Annual County
Agricultural Fair. The managers wanted me to go on one of the
committees, (whether it was plain Durhams, or short-horn needle-work, I
don't this moment remember,) but I declined. I told them that, while I
was ready to fill any vacancy that might occur in the "Committee on
Bills upon their Second Reading," they really must excuse me elsewhere.
I finally compromised by accepting a free pass, and agreeing to poke the
ribs of all the cattle I could reach, just as though I was a _bona fide_
official.

The show began yesterday with a grand concourse of all the farming
people for miles around. Every farmer brought a pair of hands with him.
The teams were innumerable; I had no idea it was such a teeming
population. There was a procession of yokes of oxen, a brass band, the
living skeleton, two fire engines, citizens generally, the Orator of the
Day, more oxen, marshals in cowhide boots and badges, and a cavalcade.
There may have been other oxen. I did not intend to omit them.

The Orator was announced in the bills as "a finished speaker." He
managed to get himself so thoroughly mixed up with his subject, however,
and knew so much about farming, which he was willing to disclose, that I
soon saw he couldn't be safely set down as finished till late in the
afternoon. I don't recall much of his address, further than that, when
he got to talking about Fall Ploughing, he said: "In the hour of his
country's peril, if fall he must, he would a little rather fall
ploughing, than in any other way!" I think, too, he spoke of the Fates
always smiling upon the farmer who improved his soil. I suppose he meant
the phosphates.

To-day I have been all around the cattle pens. I never saw such stock
before. Owing to their habit of staying out in the country the year
round, they have a firm, sleek, animated look which the best guaranteed
city stock fails to attain. One cow, from her impartial method of
hoisting visitors out of her pasture, was labelled "The General Hooker."

There was a fine display o