268 WISCONSIN AGRICULTUEE. 



places, its long line of pleasant and tasteful dwellings, its many 

 and rich facilities for trade and commerce, and its busy and en- 

 terprising population. Within a very brief space, there has 

 sprung up from the bosom of the wilderness, by lake and river, 

 a city of nigh ten thousand souls — full of activity, enterprise, 

 prosperity, and the comforts and elegancies of life. And for 

 this, it has not been indebted to the investment of rich capital, 

 and the magic charm of money from abroad. They who have 

 builded this city, who own its pleasant homes, who have created 

 for it its business and prosperity, and have shaped for it a glorious 

 destiny in the future, possessed little else, many of them, save 

 tee capital with which God had furnished them — the strong arm, 

 the courageous heart, the enterprising spirit. This capital they 

 invested to the best advantage ; in other words, they rolled up 

 their sleeves and went to work ; and while they trusted in God, 

 they kept their powder dry. Here, before us, is the present re- 

 sult of their privations and labors; the future results, we pre- 

 dict, will be glorious indeed. 



So throughout our State, men like these have wrought amid 

 hardships and privations — forsaking the comforts and refine- 

 ments of eastern homes, for the dangers and exposures of fron- 

 tier life, until the wilderness has blossomed with the fruits of 

 their toil, and these once western wilds are vocal with songs of 



joy- 

 In a commonwealth thus settled and improved, full of enter- 

 prise and prosperity, full of busy industry and increasing wealth 

 — pressing continually onward, in its upward and prosperous 

 way, and concerning itself in all great measures and means of 

 improvement, we are met together to-day. At the close of a 

 fruitful season, with the tokens of divine goodness lying thickly 

 around us, we have met together to congratulate each other, to 

 vie with each other in the productions of the soil, and the crea- 

 tions of our invention and skill, to celebrate this our annual 

 har /-est home, with festive sports and rejoicing! And Avhy may 

 we not now, in view of this goodly land which God has be- 

 queathed to us for an inheritance, and of the pleasant homes in 

 which we dwell, and the prosperity which attends us in our ev- 



