larger returns are the result. I would recommend that premiums be given to professionals as well as non-professionals in this department so that exhibitors in each class may compete against each other, and not against those of the other class. The exhibition of butter and cheese was a great improvement compared with the display of these articles at any former State Fair. The quality was the very best. I am informed that the number of cheese factories in the state is between sixty and seventy, with an annual product of two million pounds. Go on gentlemen of the great dairy interest, enrich yourselves and your noble state; exporting more than you import. Mr. E. Elliot made a creditable display of watermelons, and having had the pleasure of eating at one-for they were so large no one could eat a whole one-I can testify to their delicious flavor.

HORTICULTURAL DEPARTMENT.

O. S. WILLEY, SUPERINTENDENT.

The number of entries, and the large space occupied by the exhibitors in the Fruit and Floral Department at the annual exhibition in 1874, evidenced to the regular fair-visitor that there was no lack of interest in this field of labor throughout the state. Old contributors, the "regulars," of the horticultural army, were present with the fruits of their labors, while many volunteer recruits came with joy and gladness upon their faces, and placed at Pomona's feet their first fruit-offerings. This was gratifying, and gave general cheer to all.

The anxious lookers-on, as the hall was thronged with visitors from "early morn to dewy eve," told how earnestly the people watch the horticulture of Wisconsin. Shall we say; can we say that Wisconsin is not a fruit state? Experience forbids. All climes are alike, in that none are exempt from severe drawbacks. Michigan has the yellows and curculios to contend with; Illinois is but little better, and both are very subject to Greenland's frost. Even old Michigan is to-day planting more crab-apple trees than ever before; and though they may boast of their luscious peach and the melting pear, yet they are not happy, and long for the transcen

dants, hyslops, &c. What shall we say, then, but good cheer to all, the faithful, the resolute?

Prominent among the non-professional cultivators who carried off the first prizes in the list competed for, were Wm. Reid, North Prairie; Mrs. M. A. Lewis, Lake Mills; James Ozanne, Somers; B. B. Olds, Clinton; D. Huntley, Appleton; F. C. Curtis, Rocky Run; Luther Rawson, Oak Creek; D. T. Pilgrim, West Granville; Daniel Gelser, Oakwood; E. B. Thomas, Dodge Corners; Geo. Jefferey, FiveMile-House; Jas. C. Howard, Milwaukee; F. S. Lawrence, Janesville; Myers & Son, East Troy; Geo. W. Ringrose, Wauwatosa.

Among the professional cultivators, these were in their usual places, also taking first premiums: A. G. Tuttle, Baraboo; G. P. Peffer, Pewaukee; Gould's Nursery, Beaver Dam; J. C. Plumb, Milton; Geo. Wolff, Dansville; E. W. Daniels, Auroraville; C. H. Greenman, Milton; Mrs. Alexander Mitchell, Milwaukee; Geo. J. Kellogg, Janesville; Stickney, Baumbach and Gilbert, Wauwatosa.

It would be a matter of special interest to know and to record the varieties of each fruit exhibited where a premium was awarded. If for the best ten varieties of apples, what they were; also pears or grapes, but I have no record at hand from which to write.

The best ten grapes were shown by C. H. Greenman, and were Delaware, Janesville, Salem, Diana, Lindley, Concord, Worden, Agawam, Massasoit, Rogers No. 43. The second premium was taken by Mr. Kellogg; the varieties exhibited were the Delaware, Worden, Concord, Agawam, Iona, Eumelan, Hartford, Diana, Martha, and Creveling. Best single variety was the Deleware, and I believe that it was a part of every collection; thus showing its acquired popularity.

The Floral Department drew all eyes. The weary husbandman, who seldom sees aught but toil and care from his daily routine of sowing and reaping; the wife from the cottage by the way-side, and the child, unused to such delights and sweet perfume, thought these really the

"Bright gems of earth in which perchance we see,
What Eden was, what Paradise may be,"

And said in their silent heart-language, bring flowers:

"They speak of hope to the fainting heart,
With a voice of promise they come and part;

They sleep in dust through the winter hours,

They break forth in glory! Bring flowers, bright flowers."

And so every passer-by studied and admired each flower, leaf, and growth. None could doubt the beneficial influence, for as plantculture is becoming more and more a custom in every household, though not yet universal, as it is destined to be, still the windowgarden is fast gaining a hold upon the hearts of the people, and is becoming an unfailing source of pleasure during the long months of snow and ice, only to be satisfied, as the warm sun revives the spring-dress of green leaves, and early flowers, with a larger field of operations-the extended window-the lawn.

The professional cultivators who drew first prizes, were Wm. Kitzrow, Milwaukee; A. Middlemas, Milwaukee; H. G. Roberts Janesville; Mrs. Alex. Mitchell, Milwaukee. There is but little credit due the Milwaukee gardeners. Why they refuse or fail to bring out their plants and flowers I have been unable to conjecture, hence we are dependent upon the non-professionals to brighten our pathways. Here we find Miss Kate Peffer, Pewaukee; Emily S. Smith, Green Bay; Mrs. P. Yale, Milwaukee; Theresa Karzke, Milwaukee; S. B. Smith, Dodge's Corners; John Dearsley, Wauwatosa; Mrs. J. W. Park, Dodge's Corners; H. W. Roby, Milwaukee.

These collections were universally large, so that with the collections which took second, third, and fourth prizes the space was well filled.

Mrs. Alex. Mitchell, who is not classed with either non or professional cultivators, yet includes both, and James Vick, of Rochester, New York, who has so very generously contributed to the welfare of the society by his premiums, were present with beautiful and very attractive collections of cut-flowers, which added in a very marked manner to the hall's appearance.

The exhibition as a whole can be called a success. There might be mentioned some decided marks of progress; enough to know that it is not on the backward track. I am under great obligations to G. J. Kellogg for valuable assistance; and to H. W. Roby is due the chief merit of the Floral Department; and to one and all of my horticultural friends I extend a hearty and cordial good-will for their efforts in making the exhibition a success of which all may feel proud, marking an epoch in life's checkered way, saying, come,

"I'll teach thee miracles! Walk on this heath,

And say to the neglected flower, 'Look up,
And be thou beautiful!' If thou hast faith,
It will obey thy word.

FLORAL DEPARTMENT.

BY H. W. ROBY, SUPERINTENDENT.

As year after year rolls by, as wealth and prosperity in the state make their higher marks upon the scale of progress, as fair after fair is held where the people assemble, each to see what his neighbor and fellow-denizen of the state has done or is doing, and to display the results of his own enterprise and culture, the Floral Department of the fair is more and more patronized; is more and more visited by increasing crowds of intelligent and refined people. Never in the history of Wisconsin was this fact so forcibly apparent as at our last State Fair. Notwithstanding the fact that two years ago, several of the professional florists of the state took umbrage at not receiving first premiums on everything they exhibited, and since then, they have kept aloof from the fair, except to see what others were doing, yet the number of people who frequent that department from year to year is rapidly increasing. This is very natural in any country where the people have opportunities for æsthetic culture. Semi-barbarians in every state scout at flowers as but "mere weeds and trash." Cultivated people love them as they love the sunshine and all the other beauties and grandeurs of nature.

The writer, during the fair, took occasion on Thursday, the great day, to make some observations on the drift, so to speak, of Wisconsin sentiment and taste as to its gratification. While each department had its devotees, the Fruit and Flower Department by far outnumbered them all in the throngs of the people that surged through the hall. Early in the morning the hall was filled with pleasure seekers. Before anything like a crowd was observable elsewhere on the grounds, Floral Hall was full. Before the crowds in other departments became uncomfortably dense, a special police force had to be organized in the Horticultural Hall to turn the throng into the tread-mill channel of going "all to the right;" and before noon, the crowd that surged through the hall was like the flood-tide of a great river through straits or dells. The superintendent, with six assistants, had a heavy task to keep all in order,

to prevent blockades in the crowd. Though not up to the high standard of excellence of some other and older states, yet Wisconsin has reason to be proud of her " fruitfulness." Five hundred feet in length and five or six shelves in height or breadth was Horticultural Hail ladened with the rich fruits of the state; and many were the pleasing comments of fruit cultivators from other states as they inspected the display.

But, what may we truthfully say of the floral exhibit? Surely it was grand. Surely it was beautiful, captivating. One who has visited and exhibited at the fairs of nearly all the states, said while surveying the grand display, "I am amazed that so new a state, one whose resources of wealth are but beginning to be developed, should so excel most of the older states in her floral display."

That Floral Hall should have been a place of enchantment, no one need wonder, when it is borne in mind that the wealth and glory of the tropics, and the radiant beauty of all lands was there displayed in a most charming aggregation. The umbrageous forests of Australia, India, South America, and the "Isles of the Sea" were laid under contribution to please and instruct the cultivated and beauty-loving assemblage. From the inter-space from Palestine to the Golden Gate, treasures had been gathered into Floral Hall, and there the people of Wisconsin, many of them for the first time, saw a miniature of the herba and flora of the great outlying world around them. And deep was the study, and many the questions asked concerning the foreign plants and flowers on exhibition.

While the public taste is thus from year to year being cultivated and improved as surely and beneficially as is the quality of stock and farm products of the state, there is still need of greater effort on the part of those who can contribute to that department of our annual fairs, to make it still more a triumphaut success than it has hitherto been. Several new features of entry and exhibition need to be introduced before the exhibition can be thoroughly harmonious; and a greater spirit of philanthrophy and zeal for the public good must be inculcated in those exhibiting, so that less of petty rivalry and jealousy shall prevail than has heretofore been the case. Also, a better class of premiums should be offered, to induce a higher grade of competition. The present premium list signally fails to bring out anything like the best display that the state florists could and would make, if better premiums were offered.