d manufactures of the county, which is Middlesex.

The horticultural show was in the Town-hall, a large, handsome
apartment, with long aisles of tables, covered with piles of fruits
and vegetables; and such fruits! peaches, nectarines, apricots, and
the choicest plums, all of open-air growth, and not surpassed by any I
have seen--fully equal to the best hot-house productions of England.
Vegetables also very fine, all equal to the finest, except the turnip,
which in New England is small. The flowers as beautiful as in the Old
Country, but much smaller; consequently, that part of the show was
much inferior to our shows of the kind. In the evening of each day,
the fruits are put up to auction, and a good deal of merriment is
caused by this part of the entertainment. Those who supply the show
are well paid, as each morning there is a fresh supply; thus proving
that it is not the selected few that are exhibited, but the average
produce of the county.

From thence I walked to the show of products of industry. I found a
building 600 feet in length, 40 feet wide, and two storeys high,
crammed with such a variety of articles that it is extremely difficult
to describe them, or, indeed, to reduce them to order in the mind. I
do not propose to send you a catalogue, but to convey, as far as I
can, the impression made upon me. The ground-floor is devoted to the
exhibition of agricultural implements and machinery. I have no
intention to enter into the question of our own patent laws, but I
cannot refuse to acknowledge the superiority of the arrangements here.
The greatest advantage is, that the right to an invention is so
simply, cheaply, and easily secured, that there is no filching or
ill-feeling. Talking with a very intelligent person, who was kindly
trying to give me definite ideas in this labyrinth of cranks and
wheels, by shewing and explaining to me the movements of a most
singular machine for making carding implements--I said: 'How is it,
that with these wonders, the American portion of the Crystal Palace in
London should have been so scant? Here is enough for almost an
indefinite supply: the reaping-machine is but a unit.' 'True,' he
replied, 'but we could get no guarantee for securing the patents; and
if one man was simple enough to give the English his reaping-machine,
it did not suit others to be robbed. We have little ambition about the
matter: satisfied with what we have, we cannot afford to give away
inventions for th