ADDRESS. 



INTRODUCTORY. 



The occurrences of to-day mark an anniversary which to 

 me is specially interesting. In 1855 the annual Fair of the 

 Essex iSociety was held in this city, (then a town of six 

 thousand inhabitants,) and I was appointed to deliver the 

 address. It is therefore a quarter of a century since I had 

 the honor of presenting to you my first address upon an agri- 

 cultural topic. I say to you ; but it is painfully evident that 

 this remark has but a limited application. In looking over 

 this assemblage of the farmers of Essex, the faces of many 

 are missed who were prominent in the management of the 

 Society twenty-five years ago. The organization remains, but 

 many of those who met in 1855 in this audience room have 

 been kindly taken into the bosom of mother Earth, the final 

 resting place and home of us all. The harvests of grasses, 

 and cereals, and tubers, which we have so industriously gath- 

 ered for many years, have proved unequal and uncertain ; but 

 the harvest which the relentless hand of death reaps every 

 day and every hour is certain and abundant, and no one can 

 escape the scythe of the great mower who is noiselessly 

 approaching, and who is very close to many of us. The sus- 

 tained prosperity and success of this ancient and honorable 

 society, presents a good illustration of the real insignificance 



