State Agricultural Socikty. 1)3 



OPENING ADDRESS. 



The Assembly Chamber at the Capitol was tilled on Wednesday 

 evening, September eighteenth, with a select assemblage of ladies and 

 genlemen^ comj)rising many prominent citizens from all parts of 

 the State, who assembled to listen to the annual address of the 

 President of the State Agricultural Society, Marcus D. Boruck. At 

 half past seven the speaker was escorted to his seat by a committee 

 composed of the following gentlemen: (Jovernor Wm. Irwin, Sen- 

 ator A. A. Sargent, lion. James McM. Shafter, Secretary of State 

 Thomas Beck, Hon. Presley Dunlap, Senator Brown, Senator T. 

 McCarthy, Hon. .John Boggs, Hon. Caleb Dorsey, Hon. Marion Biggs, 

 Mayor Turner, Trustee Knox, Hon. W. Y. ."Huestis, the Board of 

 Directors of the State Agricultural Society, E. W. Maslin, Wm. H. 

 Mills, John PI. Carroll, I. N. Hoag, and J. Steppacher. 



Governor-lrwin called the meeting to order, with the following 

 remarks : 



Ladies and Gentlemen: We have met here this evening to listen 

 to the address of the President of the State Agricultural Society. It 

 might not be amiss, before introducing him who will addre.'^s you, 

 that 1 should make a single remark in relation to the office which a 

 properly conducted Agricultural Society should i)erform. It is 

 obvious that industrial prosperity lies at the very foundation of all 

 other prosperity in all civilized communities. The power to produce, 

 to produce in a measure far beyond our consumption; to have power 

 to develop our resources beyond what is necessary to sustain mere 

 physical existence — lies, I say, at the very foundation of our exist- 

 ence. It is civilization, and that of a very high degree. It is pro- 

 motive of national prosperity; much more is it promotive of an 

 esthetic taste; it rs promotive of a taste for art, where those having 

 the means to gratify their esthetic tastes can give encouragement, and 

 purchase the products of art. Nor can we have our tastes gratified 

 unless we have leisure; unless we have leisure to devote to study; 

 unless we have opportunities for collecting libraries; unless we have 

 opportunities for admiring art, and everything calculated to excite 

 our faculties for developing them. Now the Agricultural Society is 

 calculated to become a school of education in the domain of mate- 

 riality, in the development of wealth. It is by comjiaring the 

 products of one section of country with those of another; by com- 

 paring the products which are raised on one farm with those 

 produced on another, that the spirit of emulation is excited, and the 

 result of which will be continued improvement. These, my fellow- 

 citizens, are a few of the things which an Agricultural Society ought 

 to exert, and which, 1 have no doubt, this Society has exerted in the 

 past; no doubt that a great degree of our excellence in the various 

 departments is due to tlie efforts of the State Agricultural Society, 

 and the men who have promoted it in i)ast times are entitled to the 

 gratitude of all classes of our citizens, not merely of the agriculturists, 

 but of all other classes, because, in a large degree, the prosperity of 



