KENT COUJSTY. 



SEVENTH ANNUAL REPORT OF THE KENT COUNTY 

 AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



J. C. HoLMKS, Esq., Sec'i/ Mich. State Agricultural Society: 



Dear Sir — R is with no little pleasure that I sit down to perform 

 the duty of reporting to your oflice the transactions of the Kent County 

 Agricultural Society for the year 1855. Our progress has been so 

 marked with increased success that wo have exceeded our most sanguine 

 expectations, and, in fact, surprised ourselves. Heretofore the Society 

 has been cramped in resources, whilst the farming public had not 

 accorded to it that interest in its welfare which it and their own interests 

 demanded. In a great measure this supineness was owing, undoubted- 

 ly, to the newness of the greater part of our county. Tiie most of our 

 farmers were men of limited means, struggling to civilize the wilderness, 

 and bring improvement out from the woods and wilds, and hence 

 could not give attention beyond their immediate and pressing neces- 

 sities. 



But times were improving. Emigration was receiving a new impetus, 

 and a better class of farmers, those with more means and an enlarged 

 experience, were taking the places of the floating and more easy-to-do 

 cultivators of some parts of our soils. Improvement, too, was getting 

 a start, and all began to feel a stronger desire to brush up and to keep 

 stirring with the progressing times. It was then, perhaps, a more op- 

 portune moment when the board of officers were inaugurated for 

 1855. Headed by a most efficient President, W. S. H. Welton, Esq., 

 who was alive to ihe best interests of the Society, and an equally good 

 Secretary, S. S. Bailey, in his sphere, the executive committee at their 



