A.IDDIIESS. 



BY SAMUEL B. NOYES, OF CANTON. 



Mr. President, and Ladies and Gentlemen of the Norfolk 

 Agricultural Society : — Twenty-two years ago the Norfolk 

 County Agricultural Society was organized. Those of us 

 present to-day, who were present at the first public festival at 

 Dedham, will remember with what a thrill of interested en- 

 thusiasm we enjoyed that day, to which we had looked for- 

 ward with such pleasing anticipation. Many of the active 

 men of that day — not alone the farmers, who had a special 

 interest in the formation of the Society — but many, almost 

 all of the men who, from their position in other walks of life, 

 exercised a leading and controlling influence on public mat- 

 ters — Christian ministers, who, from every town in this 

 county, came to grace and to enjoy your first festival ; trusted 

 physicians, statesmen, orators, poets ; those who made the 

 day so glorious in its enjoyment and so pleasing in remem- 

 brance, have passed away from this earth. They, whom time 

 has spared to be here to-day, and who, faithful to the vows of 

 fealty registered on that memorable occasion, have followed 

 the fortunes of this Society, constantly laboring for its real 

 good, will recall to-day the labors of Burgess, and Lamson, 

 and Wight and Keyes, of Dedham ; and Lunt, of Quincy ; 

 and Merrick, of Walpole ; and Sanger, of Dover ; and Lin- 

 coln, of Canton ; and^of others whose names are household 

 words in the farm-houses of this county, and are inseparably 

 connected with the remembrance of the beginning of the So- 

 ciety. And there were Governor Briggs, and the brilliant 



