MICHIGAN STATE AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY. 709 



PRESIDENT'S ADDRESS. 



"Gentlemen of the Executive Committee of the Michigan State Agri- 

 cultural Society: — It has long been a custom that the president of the 

 society shall have something in the form of an address at the yearly meet- 

 ings of this committee. For some years past this custom has not been 

 followed closely, owing to some peculiar conditions affecting the society, 

 necessitating adjournment to some future time in order that the commit- 

 tee might be better informed regarding the place of holding its annual 

 fair, how to partially adjust some settlement of the financial embarrass- 

 ments surrounding the society as well as some minor matters connected 

 with fair management. It may not be out of place at this time to call 

 attention to some of the conditions which have environed the society for 

 quite a number of years, as well as to mention some of its former suc- 

 cesses and failures in years more remote. Since the organization of the 

 society, it has held forty-eight exhibitions or fairs, most of which, if not 

 all, were a credit to the management and a great aid in developing the 

 agricultural resources of this great State of Michigan. The society for 

 many years was really the only public means of improvement in stock 

 breeding, in advanced agriculture, in mechanic arts, and in the general 

 development of the State. While the benefits now derived from our 

 Agricultural College, the govermental experiment stations, farmers' or- 

 ganizations of various kinds, agricultural literature and the like, it may 

 not have the same value it once had as an educator, but it still fills a very 

 important place in the further development in agriculture, stock breeding 

 and kindred arts in the State of Michigan. In no way can the improve- 

 ments in stock breeding be so well brought to the notice of the people 

 of the State, as their exhibit at a State Fair. In no other way can a com- 

 parison between the different cereals of the State, the improvements in 

 machinery, in fine arts, in manufactures, be so well shown as bv good dis- 

 plays made yearly at the exhibitions of the State society. 



The important part that State Fairs take in the improvement in the 

 different departments heretofore mentioned, is recognized in many of the 

 states most advanced in agriculture, by liberal State donations in the 

 form of permanent locations, buildings and money to pay premiums. The 

 society which you represent is a creature of legislation and received a 

 small conditional State donation for a few years. This soon ceased and 

 the society was left to take care of itself, which it has done up to the 

 present time, with varying success. It has seen days of adversity, when 

 members of the executive committee pledged themselves to stand 

 between the society and bankruptcy, in order that the annual exhibition 

 might be held. It has seen days of prosperity since then, when it could 

 show an ownership of $28,000 in United States government bonds, and 

 in two years from that time, after two unsuccessful fairs held in Kala- 

 mazoo, poorer by $15,000, and in three or four years more, with a bare 

 surplus on hand. Such was the condition of the society when it located 

 permanently in Lansing. The society was obliged to improve the grounds, 

 to put up new buildings and prepare for holding its annual fair. An 



