STATE AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY. 9 



ANNUAL REPORT 



OF THE 



BOAED OF DIRECTORS 



To the Members of the State Agricultural Society : 



Gentlemen : It gives us pleasure to accompany this brief annual 

 report of our transactions and financial operations with the assurance 

 that the society has, in every particular, been successful in its efforts 

 during the year to advance agricultural interests, and to maintain 

 and strengthen the kindred pursuits of stock-raising in its various 

 branches, and a wide variety of home industries ; and that the people 

 of California, whose general prosperity depends so immediately upon 

 the degree of success attending these industries, have enjoyed a year 

 rich with results, and may look with the utmost confidence to the 

 coming season. 



Our recent fair, both at the park and at the pavilion, gave grati- 

 fying evidences of the increased interest taken by exhibitors and 

 contestants for premiums in every department, and may be justly 

 pronounced to have been the most valuable and satisfactory oaie 

 recorded in the annals of our society, and to have afforded renewed 

 proof of the present value of our organization, as well as the promise 

 of its future usefulness. It would exceed the proper limits of this 

 report, which is more justly a business one, and more in the nature 

 of a financial statement than an essay upon the interests which 

 caused the formation of the society, to review our proceedings at 

 length, or to set forth the present condition of affairs relating to them 

 throughout the State. Such information will be given in the volume 

 of transactions of the society for the year just closed, which will con- 

 tain also the minute details of expenditures made since January, 

 eighteen hundred and seventy-four, and a variety of papers of marked 

 value and interest. 



We shall, therefore, allude but briefly to some of the more import- 

 ant interests, and confine this report to a few generalizations. 



It may be safely asserted that the breeding of thoroughbred and 

 graded stock, in all its branches, and of every species, is on the 

 firmest possible foundation throughout California, and that our great 

 natural advantages of almost unlimited pasturage, and certainly 

 matchless climate, have been worthily supplemented by the energy 

 and judgment of those of our citizens who have engaged in raising 

 horses, cattle, and the lesser quadrupeds. It required but a glance at 

 the park during our late fair to assure the most casual observer, not 

 only that our soil and climate have been justly eulogized, but that 

 our stock interests are in capable hands. 

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