SEVENTEENTH ANNUAL MEETING. 



The regular annual meeting of the California State Agricultural 

 Society was held January twenty-sixth, eighteen hundred and seventy, 

 at the Pavilion, corner of Sixth and M streets. 



The meeting was called to order by the President, Charles F. Eeed, 

 who stated the objects of the meeting to be the transaction of the usual 

 annual business, and the election of a President for the ensuing year, 

 and three members of the Board of Directors, to supply the places of 

 those whose terms had expired. 



On motion, the reading of the minutes of the last annual meeting was 

 dispensed with. 



The President announced the first business in order to be consideration 

 of the following report, which was read : 



ANNUAL REPORT OF THE BOARD OF DIRECTORS. 



To the Members of the California State Agricultural Society : 



Gentlemen : Our biennial report of the transactions of the society, 

 now in process of publication, will give to members of the society and 

 to the people of the State such a full account of all proceedings had 

 under our direction, and so copious an exhibit of our agricultural interests 

 and progress, that we do not feel called upon to submit for your consid- 

 eration any general or extended report at this time. 



In compliance, however, with our custom at the annual meetings of 

 the Board, we will allude briefly to the most important features of the 

 progress of the society during the past year, and to the present condition 

 of our rapidly developing farming interests. 



We congratulate members that the long struggle we have had with 

 the unpleasant fact of an outstanding indebtedness has come to a con- 

 clusion at last, and that the society is now completely free from debt. 

 At the beginning of the year eighteen hundred and sixty-nine, the 

 funded debt amounted to three thousand four hundred and sixty-eight 

 dollars and eleven cents, and the floating debt was five hundred and 

 twenty-six dollars and sixty-eight cents. This indebtedness has been 

 fully discharged, and the treasury of the society now contains one hun- 

 dred and seventy-one dollars and seventy-eight cents. The total receipts 



