600 



reaching forth and eating, and in time, oaterpriae, skill, and even mor- 

 ality, are lost. " Labor bringeth blessings," 



Aa compared with the other sisters of the confederacy, Michigan can 

 establish her fertility and prosperity by statistics. Although among 

 the youngest and less populated of the States, and possessing less of im- 

 proved land than twenty of them, yet in sheep, she is in advance of 

 twenty-one States ; in working oxen, of seventeen States ; in wheat, of 

 twenty-six States; in wool, of twenty-three States; in potatoes, of 

 twenty-one States ; in hay, of twenty-one States ; in clover seed, of 

 twenty-three States ; and in maple-sugar, of twenty-six States. We had 

 on the first of January last^ more miles of Railroad in operation, than 

 18 of the States, and the same number of miles Vermont has. Nine- 

 teen States exceed us in population, and yet^ in many branches of in- 

 dustry, and all elements of wealth and progress, we yield to none. 

 Let us encroach a little more upon our Northern forests, and the very 

 front rank will be ours. 



Were all these evidences wanting, we have but to refer for a moment 

 to the past — a past not reaching back to another generation — when 

 moat of you, fellow-citizens, came to hew for yourselves homes from 

 the dense forests of Michigan — to make the wild wood resound with 

 the busy energy of civihzation ; to you who have seen a great State 

 spring from nothing — who know by the convincing evidences of your 

 senses, of the marvelous progress that has been acoing forward here, for 

 the strongest proofs of my proposition. 



Ten years ago, Francis Granger, in an address before the New 

 York State Fair, at Rochester, said that the man who raised the 

 first bushel of wheat in Western New York, was then present, and 

 in the enjoyment of strong and vigorous health. Would it be a wide 

 stretch of the imagination to suppose that some one now present 

 could to-day make the same honorable boast in Oakland County ? — a 

 County that this year sends to market more wheat, doubtless, 

 than any County of this Union, and more than any one of thir- 

 teen States? 



A few short years ago, and the young, hardy, and hopeful, with stout 

 hands and hearts as their sole capital, were the only ones who sought a 

 home in our County and State. A fertile soil and labor supplied the 

 place of wealth, and that toil is now meeting its reward. Your land hs» 



Y7 



