64 TRANSACTIONS OF THE 



ANNUAL ADDRESS OF T. STARR KING. 



You will not expect me, in this crowded hall, and in circumstances so 

 unfavorable for quiet and deliberate attention, to offer you, even if I were 

 competent, a lengthy or elaborate discussion of any question connected 

 with agriculture. It would be wise if the arrangements of our Annual 

 Fairs were such that an hour or two could be devoted, in a room apart 

 from the attractions and excitement of the exhibition, to an analysis of 

 the statistics of our production, or a thorough treatment, by farmers and 

 for them, of some very important and prominent theory of interest con- 

 nected with their calling. As it is, we come together rather to see and 

 show what the State is doing, than to ask or learn what it can or ought to 

 do. Governor Stanford, in his admirable address of Saturday night, has 

 uttered enough wisdom connected with agriculture for one anniversary. 



This is our " Feast of Tabernacles," our jubilee at the close of harvest, 

 I trust not unconnected with gratitude for the infinite bounty from which 

 the harvest flows. The call upon us for such gratitude is more impres- 

 sive than to the early colonists of Palestine. Most of us have not been 

 obliged to cross the wilderness to reach our Promised Land. Nor have 

 we been compelled to fight for our possession. We»bave been floated to 

 it on a peaceful sea, and the gate was cloven for our entrance, and noble 

 rivers fed by everlasting snow — " whose foam is amber, and their gravel 

 gold" — invited us to easy dominion of the interior plains. 



Suppose we were called to name on all the globe, to-day, the commu- 

 nity of four hundred thousand persons most favorably placed, so far as 

 domain and prosperity and prospects are concerned. Let a man turn 

 the globe with compasses in his hand, and hold them suspended, and de- 

 liberate as long as he may, I defy him to fix the point at any other 

 place than Sacramento — right here at Agricultural Hall — so that the 

 sweep shall include the four huudred thousand souls within the jurisdic- 

 tion of this society. What other portion of the earth held by one organ- 

 ization of less than half a million will compare in privilege, resources, 

 and hopes with the portion of this young, beloved Benjamin of Amer- 

 ican States, whose autumn-sack is now stuffed with grain, while the 

 mouth of it contains a cup of gold? A line on the Atlantic coast, repre- 

 senting the length of our State, would run from Boston below Chesa- 

 peake Bay, below Cape Hatteras, below the batteries of Gilmore on 

 Cummings Point, to the harbor of Port Eoyal. And nearly the whole 



