STATE AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY. 147 



A PRESENTATION TO GOVERNOR STANFORD. 



Between the second and third heats of the first trotting race yes- 

 terday, the State Board of Agriculture assembled in the lunch room 

 attached to the Directors' stand. Occident had been placed upon 

 the track in a light buggy, and was being speeded up and down the 

 stretch for the purpose of exhibiting his movements. The attention 

 of the crowd was directed to the movements of the horse, when the 

 Board, headed by the President, emerged from the stand bearing a 

 large casket. They approached Governor Stanford, who was sitting- 

 near the railing of the Directors' stand, when President Larue ad- 

 dressed him by name. Governor Stanford rose, being wholly uncon- 

 scious of the object of the movement. President Larue then recited 

 the gift to the society of the Occident plate, worth two thousand 

 dollars. He also stated that an old undischarged obligation from 

 the Society to Governor Stanford, in the sum of one thousand eight 

 hundred dollars, remained unpaid. He recited further, that Gov- 

 ernor Stanford, in his generosity, had agreed that the Occident plate 

 and the balance of one thousand eight hundred dollars due him 

 should constitute an endowment, the interest of which should be 

 used in the purchase of a cup, to be called the Occident Cup, to be 

 given as a trophy to California-bred colts; and the State Board of 

 Agriculture, desiring to testify to their high appreciation of the gen- 

 erosity exhibited by Governor Stanford, and believing that he was 

 entitled to the first of the series of Occident cups which would be 

 offered and won by trained horses, the Board had thought it fitting 

 that such cup should be presented to him. In the name of the Board, 

 therefore, President Larue presented Governor Stanford with a splen- 

 did gold cup. Upon one side was inscribed, "Governor Stanford, 

 from the State Board of Agriculture, State Fair, September, 1880. 

 ( Occident Cup." On the other side a splendid etching of the horse 

 Occident in motion, copied from a photograph taken for Governor 

 Stanford by the new electro-photographic process. Governor Stan- 

 ford, very much surprised, responded, declaring that his surprise and 

 gratification could find no fitting expression in language. He had 

 always felt a great interest in the success of the State Agricultural 

 Society, regarding it as one of the great instruments of public edu- 

 cation. He referred to the history of the horse, dwelling upon his 

 origin in Asia Minor and the climatic conditions best adapted to the 

 development of a high strain of horses. He declared that, in his 

 opinion, California would yet equal any part of the world in breed- 

 ing horses for the road, the turf, and the farm. He thanked the State 

 Board of Agriculture heartily and feelingly for their appreciation of 

 what they were pleased to term the favor he had conferred on the 

 society, and he hoped that the Occident Cup would find many com- 

 petitors in the annual exhibitions. 



