lO SECRETARY S REPORT. 



The show opened Tuesday with a good exhibition and fair at- 

 tendance, there being 1,822 admission tickets sold against 1,468 

 the first day of last year ; fortunately for the success of the fair, 

 Wednesday, instead of being threatening in the morning, followed 

 by rain in the afternoon, opened with such a deluge that postpone- 

 ment until the next day was the only and proper thing to do. 



Thursday was as pleasant as could be wished, and the people 

 responded cheerfully, and, so far as attendance was concerned, it 

 was the red letter day in the history of the Society, there being 

 nearly four thousand people present. And it is fair to presume 

 that had the labors of the various committees been rewarded with a 

 pleasant day on Wednesday, with the stores, machine shops, cotton 

 and woolen mills closed, five thousand people would have wit- 

 nessed the fine exhibition of fruits, vegetables, manufactured arti- 

 cles, and the sports arranged for their benefit, and that the gross 

 receipts would have reached $2,000 to $2,500. 



One of the greatest annoyances, not only to the committee on 

 awards and premiums but to the patrons of the exhibition, has 

 been the lateness to which articles intended for exhibition have 

 been brought to the hall. It is the intention of the trustees that 

 in the future, when the hall is open to the public, all goods, 

 whether fruits, flowers, manufactured and fancy articles, or works 

 of art, shall be properly classified, with premium cards adjusted. 



With this object in view, at their meeting in December, the fol- 

 lowing amendment to Rule i 7 was adopted : 



"No article intended for the hall will be entitled to a premium, 

 unless it shall have been entered with the Secretary on or before 

 Monday, Sept. 23, and deposited in the hall by nine o'clock on 

 Tuesday. Entries may be made by mail, but must be in full de- 

 tail." 



In closing I would call your attention to the "Committees and 

 premiums for the thirty-seventh annual exhibition," as many addi- 

 tions to the premium list have been made, and important changes 

 in the committees. 



In the department of fine arts, the experience of the trustees 

 with experts so far employed in other departments of the exhibi- 

 tion, has led them to secure the services of a gentleman of ex- 



