ADDRESS. 



A Diversified Industry Most Favorable to 

 Freedom and Progress.'' 



The annual gatherings of the Essex Agricultural Society 

 are not alone exhibitions of the season's increase and of 

 the progress of agriculture in Essex County, but are as 

 well commemorative of a historic past, and invite contem- 

 plation of the annals and characteristics of a free and pro- 

 gressive people. As exhibitions they display not only the 

 fruit of the soil but also the fruit of the loom, the product 

 of the workshop) and the handiwork of the mechanic. As 

 the varied industries of our county are thus brought to 

 view, and the history of her people recalled, the mind is 

 led naturally to the theme of this address, that " A diversi- 

 fied industry is most favorable to freedom and progress." 



Agriculture and fishing were of necessity the earliest 

 occupations of the colonists, and after two hundred and 

 fifty years these remain permanent and prosperous in- 

 dustries. But the history of Essex County was not to be 

 that of an agricultural and fishing community alone, the 

 instincts and genius of a great commercial people were 

 possessed by the colonists in Essex, those qualities which 

 embodied in men, make nations in place of provinces, and 

 which ever in the world's history have arrayed their 

 possessors upon the side of liberty and progress, and made 

 them the natural enemies of tyranny and decay. The un- 

 compromising attributes of the Puritan were supplemented 

 here by that many-sided-ness of character possessed by the 



