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fully to acknowledge the Divine goodness, and to rejoice in the triumphs 

 of science and art, so wonderfully displayed in our age, remarkable not 

 only for enterprise and invention, but for combined and vigorous action ; 

 an age, too, when no friend of the cause of human advancement is per- 

 mitted to loiter by the wayside, or to put his hands to the plough and 

 look back. 



" To this progressive principle the Norfolk Agricultural Society owes 

 its existence. It was the spirit in which it was born and nurtured — the 

 spirit which animates and sustains its manhood — which has controlled 

 all its movements — which has sustained its present prosperity, and 

 established it on a permanent and honorable foundation. 



" "Within the short period of five years it has acquired funds to pur- 

 chase the grounds on which its Shows have heretofore been held ; has 

 paid for the structures and other accommodations for the stocks on 

 exhibition ; and the present year has erected an Agricultural Hall, a 

 building one hundred and thirty feet in length, fifty-five in width, and 

 twenty-eight in height. This edifice is pronounced by competent judges 

 firm and durable. It is of good architectural proportions and ex- 

 ternal finish, and contains on the lower floor an exhibition room and 

 ofiices ; and on the upper floor, a spacious dining and audience hall, 

 sufficient to accommodate at its tables more than one thousand persons. 



" The whole expense of this edifice, its furniture, the ground on 

 which it stands, with its enclosures, will not fall much short of four 

 thousand dollars. Of the sum necessary to meet this expenditure, about 

 fifteen hundred dollars will be appropriated from the sale of the Soci- 

 ety's bank stock ; which, with the liberal donations of sundry gentle- 

 men, and the receipts from the Ladies' Fair, and tickets of admission, 

 it is confidently anticipated, will come within a few hundred dollars of 

 covering the whole expense. 



" For the increase of its funds, the Society is indebted, among its 

 donors, to Messrs. Samuel D. Bradford, John A. Lowell, J. Wiley Ed- 

 mands, Robert C. Hooper, George R. Russell, and Robert Roberts, in 

 sums of fifty to two hundi-ed dollars each, and for smaller amounts to 

 various other gentlemen, and also ladies. Also, to new members for 

 admission fees, of which there have been added nearly two hundred the 

 present year, giving as a total 1000 names on the roll of the Society." 



As intimated in the above address, the weather on both days of 

 the exhibition, was extremely unpropitious. A rain storm at that 

 season of the year cannot but operate most fatally to exliibitions of 

 Stock. The imported animals which are the pride of their owners, 

 cannot be forced out to endure the chilling winds and rains of Au- 



