The actual farmers who have followed the calling near- 

 est to nature as a vocation to which other matters were 

 mere avocations have been prominent. 



Although honors came to such men as Hon. Daniel P. 

 King, Gen. Josiah Newhall, and Hon. Asa Tarbell New- 

 hall, enthusiastic devotion to and skilled direction of the 

 farm were paramount and sufficient. 



Hon. Asa T. Newhall is recorded as delivering the ad- 

 dress in 1849, and again in 1884, but of course you know 

 as well as I that it was not the old Squire who addressed 

 you in the latter year, but his grandson of the same name 

 and inherited talents, who now makes hay while the sun 

 shines on the home farm. Verily, the sons find it 

 pleasant to tread the paths of labor and of honor in the 

 footsteps of respected sires. 



These are but representative names in the galaxy of 

 Essex men who have addressed this Society. Every ad- 

 dress has been carefully prepared and a vast variety of 

 interesting topics have been discussed. 



A collection of the whole would make a valuable li- 

 brary for an intelligent household. 



I should shrink from being added to this list, if I did 

 not feel that the honor came to me, not as a personal 

 one, but as a recognition of a family whose successive 

 generations have tilled the soil on the intervales of Sau- 

 gus River, from the planting of the colony to the present 

 day. Members of this family are active in the councils 

 of the Society, and I am grateful to be allowed to link 

 my name with those who have gone before me, as an ac- 

 tive member of the Essex Agricultural Society. 



This Society is old enough to have made for itself an 

 enviable history, but Essex agriculture had a world re- 



