480 [Assembly 



Treasurer's Report. 



To the Executive Committee of the Ojtondaga County Agricultu- 

 ral Society: 



In resigning the office of treasurer of this society, which I have 

 hekl for the past five years, there are a few suggestions, the re- 

 sult of that length of experience, which I wish to submit to your 

 consideration. And in the first place allow me to congratulate 

 the society upon the pecuniary prosperity which has attended its 

 operations. Five years ago the annual receipts were compara- 

 tively small^ and the society was obliged to exercise g:reat caution 

 lest it^ annual expenses and list of premiums should exhaust its 

 treasury, and render it unable to fulfil its plighted engagements. 

 Aware that in our society, as well as in every business transaction 

 in this world, abundant pecuniary means were requisite, I took 

 early occasion to impress upon the executive committee the im- 

 portance of increased receipts, that we might be able to offer 

 greater inducements ; and prominent among the means urged for 

 that purpose was the adoption of the system of charging an ad- 

 inission fee to the exhibitions of the society to all persons not 

 members thereof. Those of you who have been connected for 

 years with the society will remember the strenuous opposition 

 made to this innovation by some of our friends. 



They predicted that it would bring down ruin upon our opera- 

 tions and create general dissatisfaction. But it was evident that 

 the fands of the society must be increased, and, as no one had 

 any better plan to offer, the ex committee, by a sAall majority, 

 ordered the adoption of the present system. Time has shown 

 the wisdom of so doing. The receipts at the door of Wieting 

 hall last September were upwards of five hundred dollars from 

 this source of shilling admission tickets alone. The society now 

 pays annually five hundred and fifty dollars more in premiums 

 than it did five years ago, and I could recommend at this time a 

 still further increase in the amount of our list of premiums. 



But there is one thing that is highly discreditable to the farmers 

 of this county, and that is the fact, that out of its six thousand 



