STATE AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY. 503 



President elect Ball called the board'for 1893 to order. Roll called and 

 the following members answered to their names: President Ball, Vice 

 President Bement, Secretary, and Messrs. Fitield, Townsend, Latta, Gard, 

 Custard, Lamed, Anderson, Lockwood, Boyden, Hardy, Reed, Dewey, 

 Lessiter, Hinds, Shoemaker, Smith and ex-presidents Chamberlain and 

 Hyde. 



The president presented his address as follows: 



Gentlemen of the Executive Committee: 



For more than forty years a meeting of the executive committee of the Michitfan 

 State Agricultural Society has been held annually to report successes or failures and to 

 make preparations for its next annual exhibition. No meeting of the executive board 

 has ever been confronted with so many peculiar conditions as this one, among which 

 may be mentioned the fact that in order that the society might have a permanent home 

 for its future exhibitions (after having traveled over numerous portions of the State, 

 in its pioneer work), it was put to a large expense in furnishing suitable buildings and 

 appurtenances to accommodate the numerous exhibits yearly made at its fair. In 

 doing this, the society became involved heavily in debt, friends of the society becoming 

 security for such debt. Until the last year the receipts of the fair (since it permanently 

 located) have been sufficient to pay its interest, insurance, premiums and running 

 expenses. 



To the very rainy weather during the first days of the last fair is due the failure to 

 make the exhibition a financial success. It was certainly not due to any extravagances 

 in the expense department, for never was more rigid economy observed in nearly eveiy 

 department, as the figures which will be presented by the business committee show. 

 The Columbian, or World's Pair, to be held in Chicago this year, will draw very largely 

 upon the purses of our citizens, of whom so large a number will attend that some 

 doubt is expressed as to the wisdom of this society undertaking to make an exhibition 

 next fall, lest it put the society in debt worse than at present. At the same time the 

 interest is accruing, the insurance must be met, the grounds and buildings kept in 

 order for the future. One of the conditions upon which the society accepted a deed of 

 the grounds of the Central Michigan society was, that it should not encumber the 

 property by mortgage or otherwise. So that while it owns, for its exclusive use and 

 benefit, property (without the buildings upon it), worth from seventy to eighty thou- 

 sand dollars, it cannot secure a dollar in money upon its value, to relieve itself from the 

 debt incurred to make the property more valuable for fair purposes. 



Never in the history of the society was a more creditable exhibition of the agricult- 

 ural products, the stock in all departments, manufacturers, etc., made than last fall. 

 From the fact that the society could not pay its premiums as it agreed, there would be 

 doubt if exhibitors in sufficient numbers would willingly make another good exhibition 

 without some better assurance than a pledge to pay premiums by the society, which 

 owes 70 per cent of its last awards. A society, like an individual, must have financial 

 standing in order to make a success. With property in its possession worth four times 

 its indebtedness it is powerless to secure one dollar to help itself with. 



The above are a few of the conditions which meet us. What shall be done to meet 

 and remedy existing difficulties is one of the important duties devolving upon the 

 committee at this time. Some of the reasons which are responsible for this state of 

 affairs have been mentioned and perhaps some others may be noticed, but what we, as 

 a committee, are to do is to take matters as we find them and see what can be done to 

 put this society in a position to command the respect and confidence of business men 

 exhibitors and the State, the prosperity of which has been vastly augmented by its 

 indefatigable work for the last forty -three years. 



To those who are interested in the work of the State Agricultural Society, and who 

 may not be conversant with its objects and aims and somewhat of its past history, a 

 brief statement might be acceptable. As declared by its constitution adopted in 1849 

 in Lansing, "its object shall be to promote the improvement of agriculture and its kin- 

 dred arts throughout the State of Michigan." That the "object" spoken of has always 

 been the polar star of the society its past history is ample proof. That its work has 

 been highly successful, let the improvement in all the various fields of agriculture, the 

 improvement in every class of domestic animals, the standing of its agriculture with 

 any other state bear witness. The Michigan State Agricultural Society received its 

 parentage from the legislature and executive department of Michigan. Epaphroditun 

 Ransom, then governor, being its first president, it was given birth officially, dressed in 

 swaddling clothes with a little spending money, under certain conditions, and sent 



