188 



Col. Page responded in an appropriate and excellent speech, but 

 of -R'hich, with others, our reporter omitted to furnish a copy. 



A sentiment was then given in honor of Agricultural Associations. 



The Chair called on Hon. Seth Sprague, President of the Plymouth 

 County Society. 



Mr. Sprague replied in a brief speech, marked with that practical 

 good sense for which he is distinguished. 



The Agricultural Press was then toasted, and for which Wm. S. 

 King, Esq., Editor of the Journal of Agriculture, responded. 



Mr. Wilder introduced Mr. King as noiu a citizen of Norfolk 

 County, congratulating the Society on the circumstance, and greet- 

 ing him with a cordial welcome. 



MR. KING'S SPEECH. 



Mr. President, I tliank you very sincerely for my •welcome to your County 

 as a resident, and to your Society as a member. It is a matter of little interest 

 to any but myself, Sir, that having determined to remove my household gods 

 from the sister State of Rhode Island into this Commonwealth, I was led to 

 select Norfolk County for a residence, because of having attended her several 

 annual shows, and witnessed the unsurpassed spii-it and energy of her sons ; 

 nevertheless, I state it as a mere fact. 



Permit me now. Sir, to go back to the day of your first Exhibition, and to 

 narrate the rise and progress of the Norfolk Agricultural Society, as 

 seen by a stranger, and it will be conceded, I think, Sir, that this Society has 

 claims not only upon the admiration of the people of this country for its un- 

 equalled success, but upon their gratitude for the great results which have been 

 the legitimate consequences of that success. 



All present probably remember — indeed, who that was privileged to witness 

 it can forget ? — the first Exhibition of your Society. Where before, at any 

 similar Show, had been seen such a gathering of the great and the wise — the 

 agriculturists and horticulturists — the statesmen and scholars of the Common- 

 wealth ? Threading his way among the dense crowd of spectators, the stranger 

 saw, most active among the busy, men whose names he had been taught to 

 honor, and whose labors he had learned to bless: there were Wilder, and 

 Walker, and Weld, and French, and Downer, and a score of others, who 

 had taught New England soil to rival in productiveness the most famed spots of 

 earth ; there was Quincv, the honored sire, and the honored son, Winthrop, 

 fit inheritor pf a noble name; Adams, whose grandsire (God keep his memoiy 

 green ! ) was the ablest champion of the Declaration of Independence, and 

 whose father lived to be the most doughty defender of the sacred right of 

 Petition; Everett — a name dear to the American people — the scholar, the 



