The Massachusetts Spy, And Worcester County Advertiser

The Cattle Show and Exhibition of Manufactures. As the time of the annual show is now near at hand, we would express the hope that the interest which has heretofore been felt in it, may be found to have suffered no diminution, but that the yeomanry of the county will be prompt, as heretofore, to exhibit the choicest of the productions of their fields, their dairies, and their stalls; that the manufacturers and mechanics will display the evidences of the improvement which is going on in their respective branches; and that the females—our mothers and our sisters, will be liberal in their contributions to that portion of the exhibition—the workmanship of their hands—which have heretofore been viewed with so much satisfaction. We want such an exhibition as will shew the actual progress and state of improvement in the county. Those extraordinary and forced productions, whether animal or vegetable, which are sometimes exhibited, though, matters of curiosity, as showing what art is capable of doing, are, nevertheless, no evidence of general progressive excellence, nor are they calculated in any great degree to promote the valuable purposes for which these exhibitions are established. These remarks may, also, with justice, be extended to manufactured articles. The fact has come within our own personal knowledge, that some of our best manufacturers of woollen goods, who could have exhibited articles of superior excellence, have often been deterred from doing it, because such as they had on hand, were not made of the very finest stock which could be procured, at the most extravagant rate. We hope that such considerations may no longer have any influence. We believe that the time is past when the excellence of an article will be judged, entirely, or chiefly, by the quality of the stock. We have good reason to believe that the committees will, in future, have regard rather to superiority of workmanship, than to the extraordinary quality of the stock. We infer this from the increased disposition which has been manifested, for two or three years past, to make that the principal test of excellence.

Much inconvenience has been experienced, in years past, from a neglect of the regulation, prescribing the time of making the entries of the animals or articles to be exhibited, and, in some instances, those who would have been entitled to the first premium, if the entry had been seasonably made, have lost it by want of attention in that particular. For the information of all interested, we would now mention, that all manufactured articles must be entered and deposited in the hall, before 11 o'clock in the morning of the day preceding the show, and that all cattle must be entered, on the books of the secretary, before 9 o'clock in the evening of the day preceding the show.