that county. And Amador claims, and is entitled to the dis- 

 tinction of being the banner county of the State, as regards con- 

 tributions to the State Society's Cabinet. 



Most of the newspapers and periodicals of the State, with a liber- 

 ality not shown by the press in any other part of the world, have 

 continued to furnish theSocicty.with theirregularissues. All these 

 have been carefully filed away and preserved, and when bound 

 will constitute an invaluable portion of the Society's library. It 

 will contain a most complete general and local history of the 

 State and its interests. The contributors arc entitled to the 

 thanks of the Board and the Society. And here we would also 

 say that the California Steam Navigation Company, Wells, Far- 

 go & Co., and the various stage and railroad companies in the 

 State, have, by their uniform liberality, placed the Society under 

 lasting obligations. Valuable contributions of statistical reports 

 of various departments of the CTcneral Government have been 

 received from our Senator, John Conness, and Eepresentatives 

 Hi'gby, Cole and Shannon. The Society has also been the medi- 

 um of the above named parties and Isaac Newton, Commissioner 

 of Agriculture at Washington, for the distribution of a large 

 number of the annual and bi-monthly reports of the Agricultural 

 Department, as also of many varieties of new^ and valuable seeds. 

 The latter have been given out to parties who have promised to 

 exhibit the jiroducts, by sample, at the succeeding Fair; but 

 owing to the drought, very few of those distributed last Spring 

 have been heard from. No seeds, except a few packages of 

 wheat, have been received yet this season. Vegetable seeds are 

 usually received too late for use the same year, and hence many 

 varieties are damaged by age. The attention of the Department 

 has been called to this fact. 



We are under obligations to B. B. Eedding, Secretary of State, 

 for Statutes of 1863-4; to W. C. Stratton, State Librarian, for 

 Journals and Appendix of the Assembly and Senate ; and to C. 

 W. Wyraan, of Massachusetts, for six volumes of the Transac- 

 tions of the Massachusetts State Board of Agriculture — a valua- 

 able contribution. 



The Society's reports for 1863 have be.en published and 

 distributed throughout our own State, and many copies mailed 

 to leading journals and agricultural and other industrial societies 

 in the Atlantic States and Europe. Correspondence has also been 

 opened with these institutions, with direct reference to increas- 

 ing the size and usefulness of our library, and the Board confi- 

 dently anticipates satisfactory results. 



The Constitution of the Society has not been amended since 

 the passage of the law creating the Board of Agriculture. To 

 make it conform to the change in the management of the Socie- 

 ty, some alteration will be necessary, and perhaps no time more 

 appropriate for making such alterations will be found than the 



