OPENING ADDRESS. 



DELIVERED BEFORE THE STATE AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY, SEPTEM- 

 BER NINETEENTH, EIGHTEEN HUNDRED AND SEVENTY-ONE. 



By CHAS. F. KEED, President. 



Gentlemen of the State Agricultural Society, Friends and Fellow Citizens: 



The return of our great annual festival again calls for an account of 

 a year's stewardship. Your partiality has called me to this important 

 position for the eighth successive year, and the labors of that year are 

 fast hastening to a close. 



At this time, and from me, you will not expect any learned discussion 

 upon the philosophy or abstract principles of agriculture. Nor even 

 will you expect any considerable amount of suggestion or instruction 

 pertaining to the future of your work as cultivators of the soil and 

 improvers of the State. These things will be ably presented to you in 

 the annual address soon to be delivered by a gentleman who once pre- 

 sided over your body with great success, and is eminently fitted, by 

 long and large experience, to treat the subject in a most satisfactory 

 manner. 



From me you will expect only an account of our year's progress; and 

 this I propose to give you very briefly and in plain phrase. 



At the time of our annual meeting, in January last, fearful forebod- 

 ings of disastrous drought oppressively rested upon us all — forebodings 

 which a season of unparalleled scarcity of rain has since fully justified. 



Through large districts of our State the rainfall for the entire year 

 has not been sufficient to mature a kernel of grain or pound of hay — not 

 sufficient to keep from actual starvation large numbers of the various 

 classes of stock — not sufficient to keep the population of the State, as a 

 whole, from large decline in means and in courage. In such a state of 

 things it has not been surprising that large numbers of our culturists 

 and our artisans have sought new homes in our sister States and Terri- 

 tories to the north, where they could find rains more regular, and the 

 hopes of steady accumulation more sure. 



Thus, while our fields were barren, our cattle and horses and sheep 

 vainly roaming in search of food; our laborers out of employment, our 



