REPORT OF THE PRESIDENT AND SECRETARY. 



To THE Secretary of the Board of Agriculture. 



Sir: — In obedience to the Laws of the Commomvealfch, the 

 President and Secretary of the Norfolk Agricultural Society here- 

 with make return of the doings and expenditures of said Society 

 for the year 1853. 



The year has been favorable to the business of Agriculture, in 

 this county, and the amount of sunshine and rain, heat and cold, 

 has been proportioned to the interests and welfare of Agriculture. 

 Our Society has made advances in skill, energy, liberality and in 

 numbers, and similar efforts and spirit will not only insure her 

 present position, but rapidly elevate it to a still higher rank in the 

 scale of her sister societies. 



Two hundred additional members have, within the last year, paid 

 the fee of five dollars, and been joined to the Society ; the grounds 

 originally purchased for the Society's exhibitions, have been im- 

 proved, and the number of pens and conveniences multiplied, as the 

 following extract from the speech of the President, on opening the 

 religious services at the church on the day of the Annual Exhibi- 

 tion, will show. 



" Ladies and Gentlemen of the Society, and Fi'iends of Agriculture: 

 — The revolving year has completed another period in our history, and 

 assembled us to celebrate the Fifth Anniversary of the Norfolk Agri- 

 cultural Society. 



" While I regret the inauspicious state of the weather, I am happy to 

 congratulate you on our personal prosperity, and on the progress of the 

 Society. ' Our land has not cried against us, nor have the furrows 

 thereof complained ; ' but Spring has sown, Summer has ripened, and 

 Autumn has garnered a bountiful harvest. Nature, from her storehouse 

 of plenty, has poured around us blessings in rich variety and abundance, 

 thus rewarding the husbandman and blessing all the rural industries of 

 life ; ' for the profit of the field is for all, and the king himself is served 

 by it.' 



" It is suitable that we should meet in this consecrated place, grate- 



