; . 



Mr. President, and Gentlemen of the 



State Board of Agriculture : 



The invitation to deliver the annual address before your honorable 

 body, received at the hands of your honored President, plainly indicated 

 the questions you desired should be discussed before you. In addition 

 to the indication of the letter of invitation, your President has taken 

 the very proper precaution of discussing: with ine personally the matters, 

 to which your attention should be called, and the general theme, to 

 which the modest merit of this effort should be addressed. 



The annual exhibitions of the State Agricultural Society are designed 

 to be illustrative of the progress of agriculture, horticulture and the 

 mechanic arts in our State. These exhibitions are in the highest sense 

 an epitome of State progress. The inventions of the mind, the work of 

 the hands and the intelligent direction of nature in the production of the 

 objects of human desire, are presented annually for the instruction and 

 the thoughtful consideration of our people. This is the theater of the 

 pride of industry. Here useful toil is crowned with honor, and by that 

 crowning, labor is dignified and ennobled. For thirty-eight years these 

 exhibitions have been held, each exhibition a leaf in the history of the 

 progress of our State. But thirty-eight years is scarcely a yesterday in 

 the history of states and nations. More than this, it is scarcely a noon 

 to the morning of to-day. But, - notwithstanding the brevity of time 

 which has elapsed since the foundations of our State were laid, startling 

 contrasts and gratifying comparisons would be disclosed if only the first 

 annual exhibition of this society could be placed side by side with that 

 of to-day. 



You need not be told that the American settlement of California was 

 induced by an ardent and expectant search for gold, but when measur- 

 ing the progress California has made in .field culture, you do need to be 

 reminded that its first occupants and inhabitants had no faith in its 

 agricultural resources. Men are naturally intolerant as to the differences 

 they encounter between the countries with which they are familiar and 

 those they casually visit. Moreover, men in seeking new homes, seek 

 those where the Industrie's they have pursued in the old are the standards 

 of industry in the new. Of the truth of this, every individual has a wit- 

 ness in his own mind. We are not attracted to the countries whose 

 objects of culture are wholly unfamiliar to us. When an exhibition is 



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