504 STATE AGRICULTURAL COLLEGE. 



forth on its misaion of encouragement and improvement in agriculture, and it has 

 never failed in its duty. The results of its work have been felt in every portion of 

 cultivated Michigan. Stripped in a short time of the little aid advanced in its infancy, 

 it marched forth to manhood unaided, except by the energy and determination of those 

 who from time to time were entrusted to manage its affairs. All of the work done by 

 its managers, except its secretary and treasurer, has been done without remuneration, 

 expenses alone having been paid. It has had times of prosperity and times of adver- 

 sity. In its periods of prosperity it has been generous to the unfortunate, having sent 

 the fire sufferers of northeastern Michigan S500, with many other acts of charity and 

 benevolence. The State of Michigan has always been in the front in the improvement 

 of her natural advantages in the development of her resources and in the education of 

 her citizens. She has an agricultural college well endowed which is an honor to the 

 State, and for which she pays a large yearly amount in money. She has a State agri- 

 cultural society which she conceived and brought forth, and started on its road to aid 

 agriculture and instruct her citizens, and it has done its work without pay. It has 

 seen fit to appropriate 8100,000 to make an exhibit at the Columbian exhibition. If such 

 an exhibition be made and a creditable one. it will be due in no small degree to the past 

 efforts of the State Agricultural Society in the same line of work. The mission of the 

 State Agricultural Society is not completed, but is in just the height of its usefulness. 



By unlooked for circumstances, over which the society had no control, it is now in a 

 crippled condition as to its ability to pay its pledges, made to carry out the designs of 

 the legislature when putting it into existence. The society in some manner must be 

 relieved of her present financial distress, or it must go into oblivion, under a cloud of 

 financial embarrassment. If there has been honest, earnest work performed; if (as all 

 rnust acknowledge), great good has been accomplished in carrying forward the plans of 

 t&ose who inaugurated the society, it seems to me that the State of Michigan, after 

 carefully reviewing its forty years of successful work, will be only too glad to recognize 

 its value, and pay to this society enough, which is justly her due, to relieve it from its 

 present trouble, and to assist slightly in its future work. Other states are aiding their 

 state societies in this direction, and it is as essential to the future prosperity of agricult- 

 ure that yearly State exhibitions be made as that money shall be yearly expended for 

 any other educational institution within her borders. 



I would suggest that the present legislature be informed as to the actual state of 

 things pertaining to this society, and in a proper manner be asked to give relief by way 

 of financial aid. I am glad to say that the present Governor under the circumstances 

 of one year ago has expressed himself as favorable to such a plan when other expedients 

 fail. Prom his address of 1892 I quote the following: 



*• Expenses are down to bed rock and yet the receipts were only a little more than 

 sufficient to pay the expenses of the year including our new building and the interest 

 on the indebtedness, which amounts to no more that it may be reasonably expected 

 will be required in addition to current expenses any year. And it is safe to say that it 

 will require the best efforts of this committee and its successor, to pay current expenses 

 from year to year, and for such improvements and renewals as will be required. This 

 being the case the debt of the society remains unpaid, and the annual interest has 

 become a serious addition to the annual burdens of the society. 



'• The condition in which we find ourselves is not an exceptional one in the history of 

 fairs. Very few of them indeed have ever been selfsustaining. During the forty-five 

 years of its existence this society has done as well financially and otherwise as any of 

 its CO temporaries. The amount of benefit it has been to Michigan is incalculable. No 

 one of its long list of officers has ever made or attempted to make money out of it; it 

 has been run in the interest of no men or set of men, it has been and is in its strongest 

 and broadest sense the people's fair. It has had the services and counsel of many of 

 the best men the State afforded without money and without price, simply because they 

 believed it was a beneficent society and beneficial to the people, and they gave their 

 services from patriotic motives. It is still the people's fair and there is nothing yet to 

 take its place; its days of usefulness are not passed but it is a critical period in its 

 existence, and I trust we shall not adjourn until some measures are adopted for the 

 extinguishment of the debt and placing it again on its feet. .As to what that action 

 shall be is for you to determine. I have always been opposed to asking State aid, but 

 from inquiry I learn that there are very few State fairs that have not received State 

 aid, and very few local fairs that have been self sustaining. I would prefer some other 

 means of paying the debt, but, if there is no other way out I believe the State at large 

 has received many times the amount of benefit which it will require to put us square 

 with the world again, and if lifted over this crisis will pay it many times more" 



The actual indebtedness of the society is substantially as follows: Notes of the 

 Society bearing interest, §17,873.81; deficiency from last year. 85,G81. Total indebted- 

 ness, $2.3,.557.81. 



