No. 4.] RESPONSE BY AUGUSTUS PRATT. 27 



said that you had fair grounds valued at $125,000; and if 

 I am rightly informed, within about eight years of that time 

 you sold the grounds and received the sum of $185,000, — 

 an advance of $60,000 in a little over eight years. I think 

 there was wisdom displayed by the early managers of this 

 society in selecting these valuable grounds. It does seem 

 to me that you have done just the right thing in your sale. 

 You have gone a little farther out of the city, and purchased 

 an equally as good location for the purpose for which you 

 wish to use it, at a much less price ; and have had the 

 opportunity, as 3^our president has said this morning, to 

 deposit $50,000 in the ])ank to draw from if you have a 

 rainy day for the fair. Rainy days have been a great trial 

 to the society with which I am connected. If after all our 

 preparations a rainy day should set in at fair time, we would 

 be financially embarrassed. You need have no such fears, 

 with your $50,000 on deposit and the large rentage which 

 you will receive from letting the grounds. 



Through the courtesy of Mr. Ellsworth, I had the privi- 

 lege a year ago at the time of the fair to look over your 

 new purchase, and I certainly concluded that it was an ex- 

 cellent choice, a beautiful location, well adapted to the pur- 

 pose for which you intend to use it. I am very glad to 

 know that the Worcester Society stands on such a firm 

 basis, that it is likely to continue to be a society to advance 

 the cause of agriculture for many years. 



I wish to say a few words more in regard to the State 

 Board of Agriculture. I think these winter meetings, as 

 has been said by Mr. Sessions, were established in 1863, 

 Springfield holding the first meeting, Greenfield the second, 

 and the Worcester Society, in the city of Worcester, being 

 entitled to the honor of having the third of the winter 

 meetings. It does seem to me, Mr. President, that your 

 society has been the pioneer in all good things. These men 

 who got together and established the winter meetings of the 

 Board did not then anticipate, did not then know, the good 

 that they were doing to the agriculture of Massachusetts. 

 Yet certainly in the thirty-seven years which these meetings 

 have continued from year to year, in different cities and 

 different parts of the Commonwealth, they have been the 



