20 BOARD OF AGRICULTUKE. 



PRESIDENT'S ADDRESS. 



To the Members Of the State and Delegate Boards of Agriculture: 



Gentlemen— You have, during the past year, had a great deal of litera- 

 ture about the State Board, and its early history, for your information. 

 So much has been written, that "at this time it is hardly necessary to say 

 more. 



The State Board of Agriculture was created by an act of the Legis- 

 lature of 1851, and held its tirst fair in the month of October, 1852. It 

 came into existence through the efforts of some of Indiana's best men, 

 with possibly all the necessary display befitting an occasion so commend- 

 able, so full of hope for the betterment of the agricultural and live stock 

 interests of the State. The early efforts of the members of the State Board 

 met with varied success. At no time in the history of the Board have 

 their efforts received that measiire of success they so justly deserved. 

 Even in the very beginning we find their admission receipts were inade- 

 quate to meet the expense of putting on the first fair. However, this 

 did in nowise interfere with its usefulness nor retard its growth. From 

 its first exhibit the State Fair has developed, until it now occupies a 

 position second to no State Fair in the country. 



During the past year the State Board of Agriculture celebrated its 

 fiftieth anniversary, the golden jubilee of its existence. The Board left 

 nothing undone; spared neither time nor expense to make the occasion a 

 memorable one. The meeting was a most successful one. The plans 

 were laid for the greatest financial success ever attained by the State 

 Board, but the elements were against us, and we had to content ourselves 

 with "what might have been" and look to the future for some of those 

 "balmy days" upon which the State Fair was launched. 



You have been told from year to year, since we came into possession 

 of our new grounds, of the great wealth of buildings and equipments we 

 hold. You have listened to those beautiful word pictures until you have 

 about brought yourselves to believe they were real. 



Nothing has ever been said to you of the temporary nature of those 

 equipments. You have never been told of their many architectural short- 

 comings. Y^ou have been impressed with the idea of their stability. After 

 ten years of use we find ourselves face to face with entirely different 

 conditions. Instead of the conditions improving, as they should be, with 

 our surroundings, time is leaving its marks of decay everywhere, until 

 wo have reached that point, that it requires from six thousand to ten 

 thousand dollars to keep our buildings in repair that we may hold our 

 annual meetings in them. It looks like a wanton waste of money for a 

 State Fair in a great State, full of riches like this State, to be expending 

 eight or ten thousand dollars each year in repairs on temporary buildings, 

 such as we have. 



