State Agricultural Society. . 93 



ADDRESS. 



DELIVERED BEFORE THE STATE AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY AT THE ANNUAL 

 FAIR, SEPTEMBER EIGHTEENTH, EIGHTEEN HUNDRED AND SEVENTY. 



By EZRA S. CASE, M. D., L. L. D., Professor of Agriculture, etc., 



in the University of California. 



In coining before you to-day I feel that this should be for us not only 

 a festival, but a day of thanksgiving; that it is our privilege to turn from 

 the ghastly panorama of death unfolded in other lands — from harvests 

 laid waste and homes made desolate — to these triumphs of industry. 

 And because our own country has so lately passed through the same 

 desolating fires we are the better able to appreciate by contrast the 

 supreme blessings of peace. 



These reunions of the "Soldiers of the Plow" are of far greater value 

 than a careless observer would supjjose. The State Fair is not only the 

 great industrial holiday, the annual exhibition of our productiveness and 

 skill, but it is the germinating ground of a thousand new ideas, and the 

 grave of as many mistaken and erroneous ones. I think in this and 

 and their social bearings, bringing hundreds of isolated communities into 

 contact around the centre of a common interest and experience, lies 

 their chief value. And I do not see why they are not as profitable to 

 the trader, the capitalist, the political economist, and the schoolmaster, 

 as they are to the farmer. There never has been a time when the best 

 efforts of the willing hand and thinking brain were more inrperiously 

 demanded. Our flagging commerce, the agent of our industries, is 

 having a breathing spell in which to ponder the philosophy of trade as 

 well as its mutations. The capital of Europe is hiding itself as if in fear. 

 It is a time when such words as labor, wealth, competition, and coopera- 

 tion are apt to take new significations. 



It is from sources like these voluntaiy assoeiations of industry that 

 the facts are to be gathered which shall lift these questions into the 

 elevated regions of science. 



In coming before you to-day and witnessing such proofs that you 

 understand the value of agriculture, as the foundation of all other cul- 

 ture, of State and national prosperity, I feel that I would greatly prefer 

 to play the part of listener. But as the arnry scout who goes before to 

 report obstacles in the way of progress, the strength and force of the 

 enemy, claims no fitness for generalship, so I, who do not own a foot of 

 land, offer you some reflections upon the needs of agriculture, and especially 

 upon the needs of agricultural communities, which I have gathered during 



