ANNUAL ADDRESS 



BEFORE THE 



N. Y. S. AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY, JAN. 18, 1843, 



BY JAMES S. WADSWORTH, 

 President of the Society. 



Gentlemen : — In complying with the request of the Executive 

 Committee of the Society, to address you upon its progress and pros- 

 pects, I find the embarrassment, which, under any circumstances, 

 wouhl on my part attend the performance of this duty, greatly en- 

 hanced by the recollection that the task which now devolves upon 

 me, was, on the occasion of our recent annual fair, so happily and 

 eloquently performed by the late distinguished chief magistrate of 

 our State. I cannot but regard that event as one of the auspicious in- 

 cidents in the history of our Society. I trust that the appeal which we 

 then listened to in behalf of the dignity and utility of our avocation, 

 breathing as it did throughout, a high patriotism, and a deep solici- 

 tude for the objects which this Society is intended to promote, was 

 not lost upon any who had the happiness to hear it. I believe that 

 few of us left the capitol on that occasion, without a higher sense of 

 the importance of self-cultivation as well as agricultural progress, 

 and a renewed determination to improve not only the farm, but the 

 farmer. 



The annual fair of the Society, was indeed, in all its main inci- 

 dents, deemed by its friends eminently successful. The large col- 

 lection of those animals, the domestication of which seems so inti- 

 mately connected with the prosperity of the human race, marked the 

 progress of agricultural improvement, and the great concourse of ob- 

 serving spectators bore testimony to a widely diffused interest in the 

 objects of the association. 



A large portion of the improved breeds of farm stock, known in 

 this country, or in Europe, were represented on the occasion referred 

 to, by animals of the highest order. 



