STATE AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY. 71 



tute, at San Francisco, and I am happy to be able to announce that it 

 has today arrived in this city, and will be put to a practical test on the 

 stock grounds, during the present fair. 



Coming here, fellow farmers, as we are wont to do each year, and lay- 

 ing the products of our farms, our vineyards, our orchards, our silk 

 plantations, our dairies and flocks upon the altar of improvement, and 

 justly feeling a pride in view of our achievements, let us not forget, first, 

 that we are indebted for all these blessings to an over-ruling Providence, 

 who shapes and guides the destinies of nations and of individuals with 

 the same certainty and by the same unei'ring laws of cause and effect as 

 He brings day to succeed night and season to succeed season. 



Let us remember that our State is comparatively new — that the soil 

 we cultivate is virgin soil, which has. laid untouched by man for thou- 

 sands of years, accumulating, little by little, the very qualities for which 

 we prize it — the very elements which renders it so productive. Let us 

 remember that every crop we take from this land, every grain of wheat, 

 barley, oats or corn we gather from our fields, takes away a certain 

 quantity of their productive qualities — these elements of growth — and 

 that unless we return an equal quantity of these elements, our land must 

 inevitably deteriorate and finally become poor and unproductive. 



Let us then learn wisdom in the days of our youth. Let us take 

 lessons from the experience of our fathers. Let us shun the shoals upon 

 which the ships bearing the rich first product of many a young State have 

 been stranded. In the plain language of a farmer, let us give our soil 

 manure and time to recuperate and keep it rich, as we give our farm 

 horses grain and rest to invigorate and keep them fat. It has been well 

 and truly said, that " be who makes a blade.of grass grow where nothing 

 grew before, is a benefactor of mankind." It may with equal truth be 

 said that he who wantonly and uselessly destroys the productive 

 qualities of the soil which he, for the time being, is permitted to occupy, 

 thus decreasing by thousands and tens of thousands the blades of grass, 

 or grains or bushels of wheat which that soil is capable of growing, is a 

 malefactor of mankind. He thus heedlessly destroys the capability of 

 the earth for sustaining the lives of his own children and of generations 

 in the future. The practice which has been in years past so much in 

 vogue in this State, of burning the straw and stubble of our grain crops, 

 cannot be too emphatically condemned. The only true system, to secure 

 continued success, is that of summer fallowing and early sowing. This 

 system gives the soil the necessary rest, and has the advantage of much 

 greater economy in the cultivation. We refrain from following this sub- 

 ject further in the brief time allowable to an opening address. The able 

 gentleman who is to deliver the annual address will doubtless discuss the 

 various subjects connected with our agricultural resources and practices 

 more in detail than it would be proper for me to do — and with more 

 ability than I pretend to possess. 



The most that I desire to do is to call attention to the leading evi- 

 dences of our prosperity as a commonwealth. To do this we need not 

 go beyond the exhibition which we have met here to-night to inaugurate. 

 We have here striking evidences of this prosperity spread out before us. 

 We see here a bird's-eye view of all the industries of the State. None 

 but a prosperous people could make an exhibition like the one we here 

 behold — none but a highly enlightened and intelligent people can appre- 

 ciate the benefits or enjoy the advantages of such an exhibition. We 

 see before us many evidences of high invention and mechanical genius. 

 We discover the unerring proofs of most perfect operative skill — the 



