STATE AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY. 13 



every well conducted church in the State recognizes the importance 

 of maintaining the ofiice and paying for the services of an usher, 

 whose duties are to recognize strangers as they enter the huilding or 

 church, to welcome and present them with a programme of the enter- 

 tainment, or subject of discourse, to conduct them to seats or pews, 

 and seat them and bid them to be comfortable and at horne. But 

 this great State of ours, with an area sufhcient for an empire, with 

 resources more abundant, more varied, and more widely dissemi- 

 nated, and less known, than any equal section of the Union, or the 

 world, has never yet recognized the necessity or importance of such 

 an officer and charged with the duties indicated and furnished with 

 the means of performing them. 



Until the State does recognize such necessity, and does provide for 

 .such an otfice, and charge it with the performance of such duties, our 

 'natural resources will remain undeveloped, our natural advantages 

 will continue unknown, our industries will lag, enterprise and skill 

 will be discouraged, capital will remain idle or be invested else- 

 where, labor will go unemployed and unpaid, and our streets and 

 highwavs will be lined with robbers, tramps, and beggars. 



The State Agricultural Society has now been in existence as a vol- 

 untary institution, organized and working under the laws of the 

 State, but not under the exclusive management and control thereof, 

 over a quarter of a century. It was the first institution established 

 in the State for the fostering of practical and industrial education, 

 for the encouragement of immigration, and the promotion of the 

 productive industries. It has been supported mostly from resources 

 of its own creation and by private enterprise and donations, receiv- 

 ing comparatively but little aid from the State. It has proved itself 

 one of the most useful institutions of the Pacific Coast. It has been at 

 all times foremost in the development of the State's varied resources, in 

 the introduction and encouragement of new and valuable industries, 

 in disseminating correct and reliable information among our own 

 people and abroad regarding these resources and industries, and 

 inducing the best classes of immigrants to come and take up land 

 and make homes among us. It has taken the lead in encouraging 

 the introduction and breeding of good stock of all kinds in the 

 State, and to its efforts in this direction the high reputation the State 

 now bears as a stock breeding section of the Union is mainly due. 



All these things it has accomplished under voluntary or private 

 management. 



\¥hen the State has seen fit to assist the Society by appropriations, 

 it has always used the moneys so received in a judicious and pru- 

 dential manner and satisfactorily to the donor; and by the impulses 

 it has given the productive industries, has returned to the State 

 quadruple value received, in the form of increased taxable property 

 and enhanced revenues. 



Satisfied with the past labors and services of the Society, and proud 

 of its honorable and useful record and good name, the present Board 

 of Directors of the Society would have been willing and even glad 

 to have had it remain under the old organization and management; but 

 the framers of the State Constitution, under which we are now work- 

 ing, determined and provided that the Society should, in the future, 

 depend entirely upon its own resources for the means necessary to 

 continue its extensive and valuable work, or place itself under the 

 exclusive management and control of the State. 



