The Orator was announced in the bills as "a finished speaker." He managed to get himself so thoroughly mixed up with his subject, however, and knew so much about farming, which he was willing to disclose, that I soon saw he couldn't be safely set down as finished till late in the afternoon. I don't recall much of his address, further than that, when he got to talking about Fall Ploughing, he said: "In the hour of his country's peril, if fall he must, he would a little rather fall ploughing, than in any other way!" I think, too, he spoke of the Fates always smiling upon the farmer who improved his soil. I suppose he meant the phosphates. To-day I have been all around the cattle pens. I never saw such stock before. Owing to their habit of staying out in the country the year round, they have a firm, sleek, animated look which the best guaranteed city stock fails to attain. One cow, from her impartial method of hoisting visitors out of her pasture, was labelled "The General Hooker." There was a fine display of Dorking lambs and Jersey hens, while some bees of the Berkshire breed fairly divided the honors with a few very choice Merino pigs. A handsomely built North Devon chain-pump attracted much attention from the milkmen. The turkeys, geese, ducks, poultry and other farm yard _habitués_, though cooped up in one corner, did all they could to make the show a success. The products of the soil were heaped up in the richest profusion. This is a great raising county. No community raised their quota of substitutes more rapidly, during the war. Rows upon rows of corn, of barley, rye and oats [like most modern Serials,] seemed as though they would never come to an end. Some early squashes were pointed out to me. I understood that they were gathered at four o'clock in the morning. This is nothing. I distinctly remember picking up watermelons, when a schoolboy, much earlier than that. The butter, cheese, and bed quilts, were all of the finest texture. Everybody took a first premium. Among the newly patented inventions I noticed "The JOHN MORRISSEY Smasher," "The Swamp Angel Sheller," and a lovely piece of mechanism called "The Just One Mower." There was the usual horse trotting from morning to night, both days, with pool selling, from which, I presume, agriculture derived great benefit. I say nothing of the other side-shows, for (with the exception of ALEXIS ST. MARTIN,) I never heard of one that was worth going across the street to see. Yours truly, and yours rurally, SARSFIELD YOUNG. * * * * * OUR PORTFOLIO. PARIS, THIRD WEEK OF THE REPUBLIC, 1870. DEAR PUNCHINELLO: I concluded I would leave Paris for Tours last week, as the refusal of Life Insurance Companies to take war risks made me apprehensive for the temporal welfare of the youthful TINTOS in case I should be untimely called hence. It was a wise resolution, but a few trifling obstacles, to which I shall refer, prevented me from carrying it out.