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noting in what the greatest improvement consists. But these county 

 meetings, where each man is brought in contact with his neighbor, 

 where town meets town in earnest competition, where the production 

 of the dairy, the loom and the needle, bear testimony to the industry 

 and skill of the fair hands to whose charge are committed those house- 

 hold duties which, when performed with order and intelligence, make 

 the homeliest households the abodes of peace and happiness — it is 

 these social county fairs after all, which must ever be of the greatest 

 utility in stimulating "a community to become more thoroughly con- 

 scious of its own deficiency, and will tend to shape its course of im- 

 provement. The exhibition you make to-day you could not have 

 made a few years ago. Here where we stand was then the distant 

 west; now that unknown portion of our continent has swept onward 

 still farther towards the setting sun ; and we stand, a link connecting 

 the east with the west, and enjoying the advantages of both. Here 

 you have a soil unrivaled in its adaptation to the cereal crops, and a 

 climate and pastures that permit you to grow fleeces equal in value to 

 that which the old Greek hero souorht where now are contendinc: the 

 fleets and armies of eastern and western Europe. Men of enterprise 

 are seeking your productions and bringing within your reach the im- 

 provements of other lands. You have at your command inventions 

 which, by their utility and importance to the agriculturist, have com- 

 pletely cast into the shade the choicest workmanship of art in the old 

 world, and borne off before their eyes, amidst the loudest plaudits, the 

 loftiest honors and the highest meeds of praise. 



Situated thus, and with science pursuing on land and eea, in earth 

 and air, its bold researches, and laying at the feet of Agriculture the 

 treasure it has gathered, with the State opening its cofters and acknowl- 

 edging the right of the tiller of the soil to an education which shall 

 advance his interests, the prospect of the future for the farmers of 

 Michigan is most cheerinor. 



Be it your duty then to know and to manifest your appreciation of 

 the advantages you enjoy, and of which those who have gone before 

 you had no conception. Be it your duty so to use your advantages 

 that your lands may increase in value from year to year, and their 

 fertility and productive powers remain unimpaired. Be it your duty to 

 encourage those institutions of learning by which you are surrounded, 



