194 GENERAL HISTORY. 



silver cups, spoons, etc.. etc. But where, O where were they? Echo has not yet an- 

 swered." 



•' Well, on returning home from the State show, I addressed the president of the so- 

 ciety, tlie Hon John Biddle, then residing in Detroit, asking what was loose; and why 

 no officials of the association appeared at Ann Arbor. He very politely and regret- 

 fully informed me that the whole thing had entirely escaped his memory until the day 

 after the fair." 



"I ought to state that quite a number of the good people of the town and village 

 gathered around and voted thanks to the exhibitors; and I have to this day felt proud of 

 that State fair." 



In February, 1849, during the first session of the Legislature after the 

 removal of the state capital from Detroit to Lansing, Titus Dort, then a 

 member from Dearborn, Wayne county, and chairman of the committee on 

 agriculture, after conferring with other members, caused a call to be issued 

 for a meeting in Eepresentative hall, on the 10th of March, 1849. After 

 adjourning from time to time, a society was organized, on the evening of 

 March 28d, 1849, with Epaphroditus Kansom, of Kalamazoo, as president; 

 J. C. Holmes, of Detroit, as secretary, and John J. Adam, of Adrian, as 

 treasurer. 



Subsequently the Legislature passed an act incorporating the society, on 

 April 3d, and by act approved March 31st, 1849, pledged the sum of $500 

 to be offered in premiums, conditioned upon the raising of an equal sum by 

 the society. It also provided for the publication of the society's transac- 

 tions. 



The first fair of the new society was held at Detroit on Wednesday, 

 Thursday and Friday, the 25th, 26th and 27th of September, 1849, with a 

 premium list of 81,000, on a parcel of ground fronting three hundred and 

 seventy feet on Woodward avenue and extending back eight hundred feet. 



The appreciation in which horticulture was already held is manifest in the 

 elaborate provisions made at this and many of the earlier fairs for the 

 accommodation of its exhibits. The capacious halls provided for this pur- 

 pose were, on many occasions, elaborately ornamented with evergreens at 

 large expense of tasteful labor, making them almost, if not altogether, as 

 attractive of themselves as were the then large, beautiful and perfect fruits, 

 guiltless of the attacks of insect and fungus, supplied by the young orchards 

 of the State, yet in their pristine health and vigor. 



This diminutive exhibition, as compared with many of its more modern 

 successors, proved highly successful, even as a financial venture, leaving in 

 the treasury, after paying all liabilities, the sum of 81,260.00. 



During the year 1850 measures were taken by the society for the collec- 

 tion of an agricultural library and museum. 



In January of this year the executive committee memorialized the Legis- 

 lature in favor of establishment of a Michigan State Agricultural College, 

 n pursuance of the provision of the State constitution to that effect, and by 

 joint resolution the Legislature to donate 350,000 acres of land in aid of such 

 undertaking, which was subsequently done by a law extending similar aid to 

 each State and territory. 



The agricultural society's second annual fair was held at Ann Arbor on 

 the 25th-27th of September, 1850, with a premium list increased to 82,000, 

 and an appropriation of 8500 for diplomas and medals. The weather dur- 



