SEVENTH DI8TRICT AGRICULTURAL ASSOCIATION. U\') 



I tell you, ladies and gentlemen, the enterprising men who spend their 

 time and* money in getting up an agricultural Fair, deserve the commen- 

 dation of the entire public. They are doing something which benefits 

 mankind. They are bringing blessings into every household. Sometimes 

 we hear these old sidewalk grumblers, these goods-box idlers, who never do 

 anything but sit upon a goods-box from morning until night, except to go 

 home at meal-time and scold their wives and spank their children, tell us 

 that agricultural Fairs are humbugs. These sidewalk statesmen are mis- 

 taken, for the only real humbugs in the world are tramps and goods-box 

 lawyers. They are humbugs of the worst kind, for they are social, politi- 

 cal, and moral nuisances. 



But the agricultural Fair comes to us all as a blessing; and when ladies 

 and gentlemen vie with each other in bringing to the Fair ground and into 

 the Pavilion the various exhibits of art, skill, and industry, they are scat- 

 tering blessings which enter other households, benefit other lives, and are 

 sowing the seeds of improvement in the minds of children, and makes not 

 only their own lives, but the lives of others worth the living. These Fairs 

 bring us into relation with other countries, and the thoughtful mind rinds 

 something worthy attention in studying soils, so as to know what products 

 are adapted to the hillside or the valley, the sandy loam or the adobe. 

 Here we study the climatic influences, which God, in his providence, has 

 caused to create varieties in the same family of plants. Here the different 

 zones of earth are blended, as it were, into one, and we can see the effects 

 which change has wrought upon the same product. The man who does 

 not learn something new, something beneficial, at an agricultural Fair, 

 must have a head like a chimpanzee or orang outang. 



Think of this: When our old friend M. L. Houk went back East, he 

 passed by a field where a farmer was "laying out" furrow's for planting 

 corn. How do you suppose the farmer did it? Well, he had a man go 

 ahead, and riding on horseback drag a long pole, which left a mark upon 

 the ground; then the farmer would come after with his plow and team and 

 try to make a furrow where the pole had dragged. Houk asked him why 

 he worked that way when he could do much better by leaving the man 

 and the pole at home. The farmer told Houk that was the way his father 

 had taught him, and if he (Houk) didn't like it he could ride on and 

 mind his own business. I tell you, my friends, that man had never seen 

 a county Fair. That man would have made a good sidewalk statesman. 

 That man would have told you that county Fairs were humbugs. 



Now, one of the blessings which flow from county Fairs is to show men 

 new ways and new methods of doing things, and when men and women 

 get up a district or county Fair, and bring their neighbors to see the progress 

 which others are making, great good is being done. The Fair, then, should 

 be encouraged. The men and women who work to make it a success 

 should have the praise they so justly deserve, and we of Salinas City 

 should feel proud of our fellow-citizens who every year bring our county, 

 our pleasant city, and the resources of our valley into prominence through- 

 out the State. These men like Jesse D. Carr, J. R. Hebbron, Eugene Sher- 

 wood, James B. Iverson, J. W. Hill, M. Lynn, William Vanderhurst, and 

 John J. Kelly, and the great host of others I might mention, deserve the 

 thanks of every citizen of this town and county. They have displayed a 

 public zeal and a public spirit which has added wealth to our city and 

 has brought blessings to our county. Then let us unite in honorable effort 

 to encourage this work and advance this cause, and try and make each 

 succeeding Fair better than its predecessor. 



