From China we return to our startingpoint in Japan. Putting aside fanciful legeuds, the Japanese acquired the art of enamelling from China about the same time that they learned how to make porcelain, i. e., in the latter part of the sixteenth century. includes some of the finest illustrations of workmanship and color. The process appears to consist of bending the metal wire into the requisite designs in the inside of a mould. The cells thus formed having been filled with the enamel powder or paste, the piece is fired, and then removed from the The Japanese methods are almost idenmould. Vases are thus made in sections tical with those of China. When copper, without background, and these portions are and not porcelain, is used as a base, the brass soldered together. In colors and in proc-wire is first fixed by means of a kind of esses there is often shown a remarkable af- gum, to keep it in its place until the applifinity between the Chinese and European-cation of the wire is finished. A mixture notably the Byzantine-cloisonné enamels. MODERN CHINESE CLOISONNÉ ON PORCELAIN. of borax and brass solder is then applied, and the piece is fired so that the wire may be securely fastened before the cells are filled with the enamel pastes. The old enamels are characterized by all the best qualities of the Chinese. The designs are partly of the conventional order and partly realistic. On a porcelain jar or vase a huge dragon appears, of the usual formidable type, and around it are rolling dark clouds like heavy smoke. On another is a landscape painted with all the sympathy which the Japanese artist expresses in his work. The subdued tone is not the result of a lack of brilliancy, but of skillful handling of colors and unerring taste in assortment. It is only upon inferior specimens that any thing like harshness or crndity is visible. The finer examples are rich and quiet in tone. The colors are mingled with a harmony so subtle that analysis can hardly discover whence it arises. A river is indicated by a few wavy threads of gold in white tinged with blue, and the empurpled hills fade away into the blue of the sky which forms the ground-color. There is nothing discordant even when the most brilliant effects are sought. In some pieces the artist concentrates his eye and hand upon the realistic: storks wade in a stream, and every feather, every scale on the long bony legs, is a cell filled with shaded enamel. The introduction of two colors into one cell is effceted with a nicety at times marvellons, more particularly in flower pieces, where fine shading is essential to the perfect reproduction of the bloom of nature. H THE MEETING OF THE "ROYAL" ON DURDHAM DOWN. [AVING long been familiar with agricultural exhibitions at home, both large and small, and having often read with interest the reports of "the country meeting," or annual show, of the Royal Agricultural Society of England, it was with much interest that I visited Bristol during the second week of July to see the contrast between their exhibition and ours, and to verify my preconceived idea of what the "Royal" show must be like. Like all large towns in England, Bristol, in spite of much that is modern and busy, is full of antiquarian interest. The Church of St. Mary Redcliffe, of very ancient foundation, and completed in 1280, was said by Queen Elizabeth to be the most beautiful in her kingdom. It is a perfect specimen of Gothic architecture. The old houses of the "Horse Fair" are equal to the Rows of Chester in picturesque effect. The suspension-bridge over the river which borders Durdham Down, as well as the view from the down itself, suggests in a smaller way the bridge and river at Niagara. ed with canvas. Interspersed among them were tents and cheap wooden buildings for judges and officers, for members of the society, for restaurants, for drinking booths, etc. Here and there were rings for the examination of cattle, a larger one for agricultural horses, and a still larger one, with a grand stand adjoining, for the examination of pleasure-horses and for the general exhibition of live stock. The immediate impression was that of a most orderly and imposing gathering of the means and results of a gigantic industry. We have in America no agricultural show quite comparable with this one. The St. Louis Fair comes nearest to it, but it lacks some of its more impressive elements, and it adds very much which has to do rather with mechanics than with agriculture, and a conspicuous element of art and domestic industry, which here is absent. The St. Louis Fair would very fairly represent the English show if, without losing size, it gave up all collateral branches, and were occupied entirely with what relates to agricultural and purely country life. Indeed, the English show departs from the agricultural line only by the exhibition of carriages and a few articles of domestic economy which are not specially confined to farmers' households. The inclosure, about seventy acres in extent, covered a level stretch of the great common of Bristol-Durdham Down-near the beautiful suburb of Clifton. The temporary offices of the society and the wooden ringfence had the same slight character with The administration of the show is most which we are familiar at home. The vari- perfect. The space is large, the sheds and ons sheds for implements, stock, etc., stretch- show rings are admirably arranged, and in ed out in parallel rows from each side of a every department it is evident from the outbroad central avenue, and ran along near- set that the management is working with ly the whole of the outer inclosure. They the light of long experience. The catalogue were generally frames of light timber, cover- is printed almost at the very last moment; its numbers are all consecutive, and there | ing than were the thousands who were gathare astonishingly few exhibits recorded ered together on Durdham Down during the which are not present on the ground. The prize lists in the various classes are conspicuously posted the moment the judges' awards are announced. week of the "Royal" show. Whether or not it is an evidence of civilization for a nation to be able to drink so hard and to carry its drink so stontly it is not worth while to The managers of the grounds and the discuss; it may be due to a peculiarity of groups of judges were assisted on this occa- climate, to the constant out-of-door exersion by a swarm of boys from the training cise possible to this whole people, or to the ship Formidable—neat and active fellows, in long habit of many generations; but whattheir sailor dresses, distributing badges, car-ever the reason, one might, so far as this rying messages, and giving efficient help in show ground was concerned, have gathered all matters of detail. The exhibition was the impression that there is less drunkenquite ready at the time announced; every ness here than in our State of Maine, where exhibit was in its place and ready for in- the sale of even the lightest beer is a penal spection. In no single department during offense. the whole week of the show was there the least suggestion or sign of confusion or hur-lishmen, and, to a stranger, one of the cury; and so far as the crowd permitted, even on the cheap admission days, it was easy to inform one's self concerning every object. It is another striking peculiarity of Eng rious exhibits of the show, that vigorous, healthy, and wholesome appetite should make men and women too-so indifferent to the modern art of good cookery. That a nation should have reached the state of prosperity of Great Britain, and still content itself with such bread as is universal here, is astonishing to those who have known civilization in other parts of the world. That, with a climate admirably suited to the growth of nearly all vegetables, a people numbering forty millions should subsist mainly upon potatoes and the various families of the cabbage as their chief vegetable diet, is indeed odd. Now and again one may get on very well with a costly mid-day luncheon of cold meat, cheese, and iced claret, and for a show ground such mid-day diet is well enough; but that a people by no means deficient in æsthetic cultivation should go from the cradle to the grave ignorant of what their neighbors across the Channel regard as the necessaries of a pleasant life, is little less than amazing. To an American the most interesting feature of the show was, of course, the people -the people from whom we have sprung, whose cousins we are, and who, while having undergone some modification by the civilizing influences of modern times, remain far more nearly like our ancestors of two hundred years ago than is any class which we have to show. Costume has fled in England, as elsewhere, before the advance of the railway and the tourist, so that there was not much that was noticeable in this regard. Farmers' wives and daughters, and even dairy-maids and house-servants, have little in their dress to distinguish them from their betters: here and there a carter's frock, and quite generally the breeches and leggings of the grooms, constitute about all that is left in the way of class dress. If peculiarities of speech yielded as readily as peculiarities of dress, one might easily fancy one's self in America; but peculiarities of speech are far more stubborn, and wheth- I think we have an impression in Amerer in the lower and richer intonation of ed-ica that an English crowd is rough, surly, ucated persons, in the absolute absence of and brutal, and in no way comparable to h's among the multitude, or in the strong local dialects of twenty distinct peoples from different counties, one felt a very foreign influence. an American crowd. It seems to me that this idea is as mistaken as is our belief in what is known as the "rousing British cheer." We were well placed in an enorAnother peculiarity was the enormous mous crowd lining the main street of Brisamount of drinking, men and women-of tol during the procession of the Prince of many classes, too--crowding about the nu- Wales from the railway station to the show merous large booths where beer and spirits yard-a crowd which had stood its ground were sold. I can recall no instance where, for hours under circumstances which might at an American agricultural exhibition, any well develop any tendency to roughness or sort of intoxicating drink has been sold rudeness. There was a certain amount of within the inclosure. Here it was sold uni- chaff and wit and boisterousness, but all versally and consumed enormously. Such was good-humored, cheerful, and pleasant, an amount of such beverages would drive very much what one would see in Broadan American crowd beyond the limits of way on a similar occasion-what, indeed, decency, and quite beyond the control of we did see when the Prince paid us his visthe police; here it had no more effect than it in 1860. But when he finally appeared, so much water; and no crowd in America, and the obvious enthusiasm of the people under the most favorable circumstances, attempted to find expression in a cheer, it could be more orderly or more self-respect- seemed to us that he must still remember with regret the ringing salute which fol- | on, to realize how very far beyond our best lowed him in New York through a similarly standard is the almost universal cultivation packed street. It almost excuses our harsh- of this remarkable land. er voice and shriller key to know that our In the matter of ploughs especially, every thing is in strong contrast to our own implements. Wood is scarcely at all used, either cheer is really so much more cheering. To a thoughtful person certainly nothing in England could be more impressive, more indicative of the enormons wealth and power of the people, than the collection of ani A.-PLOUGHI FOR ORDINARY USE. mals and implements gathered together at | this annual show. Travelling through the country in this harvest season, surrounded on every side by an agriculture with which we have nothing to compare; passing hundreds and hundreds of large fields of wheat which can hardly yield an average of less than thirty-five bushels per acre, and where uniform excellence is remarked on every hand; among fields of root crops from twenty to one hundred acres in extent, abso-a lutely clean, and abso lutely unbroken in their uniformity of growth; where the grass during the hay harvest suggests the Irishman's pig, which was "tallest when he was lying down," so. heavy a swath does the apparently slight growth make - one hardly wonders that an area not larger than the States of New York and Pennsylvania should hold a population equal to that of the whole United States; but one needs to see gathered together within the reach of an hour's walk specimens of the men and the tools and the animals by which this cultivation is carried for beams or for stilts, the whole implement being of iron. There are a number of makers who exhibit very largely; prominent among them are J. and F. Howard, of Bedford, who exhibit twenty-six hand-ploughs of all sorts. I give an illustration of their B.-SWIVEL PLOUGH. regular form of plongh (A) for ordinary use, of a swivel or side-hill (or one way) plough (B) of peculiar construction, and of their great specialty, the double plough (C), sometimes also made treble. This double plough is drawn by four heavy horses, is so arranged that its working is extremely easy, especially in turning at the end of the furrow, and C.-DOUBLE PLOUGHI it is considered, so far as I can learn, a very quate had been my preconceived idea concerning them. John Fowler and Co., of Leeds, show several sets of apparatus with engines of from six to twenty nominal horse-power, with the gang-ploughs, grubbers, rollers, cultivators, and harrows to be used with them. It would be impossible to give a correct notion of the system of steam cultivation D.-DOUBLE PLOUGH WITH SUBSOILER. without quite full illustrations. In Fowl and which takes the place of the land sideis set at an angle, and takes the side thruster's system two engines are used-engines of the implement. These ploughs are all very much heavier than ours, and appear to be much more cumbersome. As seen in operation in the field they appear to be entirely satisfactory and to do excellent work. I have found them in use in Canada, where our own lighter ploughs had been given up as inferior to them. One comes to believe, however, on proceeding further, that all these hand-ploughs are destined to be relegated to a very secondary position, for use in small fields and odd corners. Whatever may be the objections to the use of the steam-ploughs-and they are fast being overcome-they impress the unaccustomed visitor with great force. I had read of them and had seen pictures of them, and knew of the amount of work that they accomplished; but to see them standing here, more than a dozen of them in shed after shed, showed how inade which are capable of travelling on the road, moving about the fields, and carrying their apparatus with them. Under the boiler a horizontal drum carries a steel-wire rope, by which the plough is drawn. The plough, which turns from four to eight furrows, according to the power of its engine, is a gang of ploughs attached to an iron frame, and so balanced that as it proceeds in either direction the gang which is to make the reverse cut is cocked up in the air. The ploughman sits over the centre of the gang, and has in front of him a steering windlass, by which the direction of the plough is regulated. The grubbers, cultivators, harrows, subsoilers, etc., are all arranged in a similar way. When at work, one engine stands at each side of the field, each with its rope attached to the plough, and this is drawn backward and forward between them, the engines moving forward along the headland for each new bite. In order to protect the rope from friction, it is supported here and there by little trucks called "rope porters." A pair of the larger engines and a six-furrow E.-SINGLE-CYLINDER STEAM PLOUGHING ENGINE. |