3-034-693 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

Harvest Trophy at the Crystal Palace, [Sydenham], 1871. 'The seasons of the year, in their beautiful and beneficent alternation, may fitly be celebrated with festive trophies,...at a place of popular entertainment. The Crystal Palace has, in the present month of October, added to its constant attractions a novel object of gazing and wondering contemplation. A grand harvest trophy, designed and constructed by Messrs. Sutton and Sons, of the Royal Berks Seed Establishment, Reading, has been erected in the north part of the nave. This very picturesque and interesting monument of the bounties of Nature consists of a diversified collection of grain plants and other grasses, roots, fruits, and all kinds of useful vegetable produce, built up in a superb architectural edifice, with towers rising to the height of 25 ft. It contains fine sheaves of corn, wheat, barley, oats, and rye, more than 200 varieties of grass, some flax and hemp, seventy-five kinds of potatoes, many sorts of turnips and cabbages, seventy-five dishes of apples and pears, lovely clusters of grapes, and quantities of other fruits raised from English soil. Besides these choice samples of growth and ripeness there is a show of agricultural and horticultural implements'. From "Illustrated London News", 1871.