SEVENTH ANNUAL REPORT 



OF THE TRUSTEES OF THE AMERICAN INSTITUTE OF THE 

 CITY OF NEW-YORK, MADE MARCH, 1849. 



The Trustees of the American Institute of the city of New- York, 

 in conformity to law, herewith present to the New-York State Agri- 

 cultural Society a report of their proceedings for the past year, being 

 their seventh annual report. 



The great interest which the public have evinced within the last 

 few years, not only in the annual fairs, but in the intermediate opera- 

 tions of the Institute, enforce upon the trustees the duty of reporting 

 for general information, all the transactions which can be useful to 

 the great agricultural, commercial, and manufacturing interests of this 

 country. 



Before entering upon details, the trustees feel themselves bound, 

 alike from a sense of justice and regard, to advert to the great loss 

 which the Institute has recently sustained in the death of their Cor- 

 responding Secretary and Superintending Agent, Mr. Thaddeus B. 

 Wakeman. This gentleman was so long and intimately connected 

 with the American Institute, that no person in any section of the 

 country can have heard of the one without being familiar with the 

 other. 



The projectors of the Institute, among whom was Mr. Wakeman, 

 like those of every other novel undertaking, had numerous obstacles 

 to contend with. Theii enterprise was denounced as chimerical and 

 visionary. Public annual fairs were regarded as transatlantic schemes 

 for vending of commodities, productions, &c., especially adapted to the 

 degraded artizans and laborers of Europe, but aljtogether unsuited to 



