we have a better climate and far better sheep-walks than the English in the rugged mountain districts of New-England, of Pennsylvania, and of our own State. The breeding of large, fine-fleshed sheep of the choicest varieties, on the lines of all the railroads communicating with the great cities, is one of the undertakings which promise largest and surest returns to our farmers, and it is yet in its infancy. A hundred thousand of such sheep would be taken annually by New-York and Philadelphia at largely remunerating prices. Thousands of acres of sterile, scantily timbered land on the Delaware and its branches might be profitably transformed into extensive sheep-walks, while they must otherwise remain useless and unimproved for ages. These lands may now be bought for a song, and are morally certain to be far higher within the next dozen years.

LONG-WOOLED SHEEP.
Best long-wooled buck and ewe over two years old: owned by J. McDonald and Wm. Rathbone.

Of Swine there were a good many exhibited at the Fair, but we did not waste much time upon them. The Hog Crop once stood high among the products of the older States, but it has gradually fallen off since the settlement of the great West, and the cheapening of intercommunication between that section and the East, and is destined to sink still lower. Pork can be made on the prairies and among the nutwood forests and corn-bearing intervales of the West for half the cost of making it in New-England; no Yankee can afford to feed his hogs with corn, much less potatoes, as his grandfather freely did. Only on a dairy farm can any considerable quantity of pork be profitably made east of the Ohio; and he who keeps but a pig or two to eat up the refuse of the kitchen cares little (perhaps too little) for the breed of his porkers. So let them pass.

"Fancy" Fowls are among the hobbies of our day, as was abundantly evinced at the State Fair. Coops piled on coops, and in rows twenty rods long, of Chinese, Dorking, and other breeds of the most popular domestic bird, monopolized a large share of attention; while geese, ducks, turkies, &c., were liberally and creditably represented. The "Hen Convention," which was a pet topic of Boston waggery a year or two since, might have been easily and properly held at Rochester. Many of these choice barn-yard fowls were scarcely inferior in size while doubtless superior in flavor to the ordinary turky, while the farmer who opens the spring with a hundred of them may half feed his family and at the same time quite keep down his store-bill with their daily products. Small economies steadily pursued are the source of thrift and competence to many a cultivator of flinty and ungenial acres; few farmers can afford to disregard them. If thrice the present number of fowls were kept among us, their care and food would scarcely be missed, while their product would greatly increase the aggregate not only of thrift but of comfort.

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