STATE AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY. 777 
from the farm, and work of cunning fingers from the parlor and the shop, 
wc ought not to forget that our kinsmen and neighbors and friends, some 
of whom were with us a year ago, are now exposed to quick, unnatural 
death on distant fields of heroic, strife. Yet how easy to lose thought of 
the war at a place like this, where all nature about us is so eloquent of 
peace, so suggestive of good will among men! In all these broad, green 
fields you hear no sound of angrier strife than the noon-day ticking of 
emulous crickets and katydids. In all these brilliant woods you see no 
shallow, half-covered graves. There is no smell of human slaughter, no 
hint of mourning and lamentation. October, as if it were the Joseph of 
months, is. arrayed in its coat of many colors. The trees arc gaily robed, 
as for a carnival. 
The gentian’s sweet and quiet eye 
Lobks thro’ its fringes to the sky. 
% 
The birds have sung their cheerful good-byes, unconscious that their 
flight to warmer latitudes would be over armies that are deciding the sub- 
limest, bloodiest issue in the history of our race. Throughout those gold¬ 
en, misty, pensive days of autumn, when the chill of sudden sunsets tells us 
the aged year is soon to die; while we are filling our barns and cellars 
witli stores for the winter, let us be thankful to God that we are permitted 
to uphold our country’s flag, and our Union’s integrity, without sacrificing 
the prosperities of the farm and the workshop. Let us be devoutly thank¬ 
ful that with us the sanctities of the church and the fireside are not touch¬ 
ed by the blight of war; that our gardens and farms and cemeteries are 
not trampled by the heels of rapine. The festival we keep to-day may 
remind us of a promised era, when swords shall be beaten into plowshares, 
and spears into pruning-hooks. In the late flowers oi the garden, happy 
insects arc murmuring idyls bf peace. The flowers themselves are a pro¬ 
phecy (if peace. Without shrinking from the duties and self-denials of a 
true patriotism, let us ask God to fulfil the prophecy, and to send us the 
Foacc. 
0 flowors! the soul that faints or grieves 
New comfort from your lips receives; • 
Swcot confidence and patient faith 
Arc hidden in your healing leaves. 
Help us to trust Thee on and on, 
That this dark night will soon be gone, 
And that these battle-stains are but 
The blood-red trouble of the dawn. 
Dawn of a broader, whiter day, 
Than ever blest us with its ray, 
A dawn beneath whoso purer light 
All guilt and wrong shall fade away. 
At the close of Professor North’s address, the society voted their thanks, 
and requested a cop' f for publication. 
LEYI BLAKESLEE, President. 
T. B. Miner, Secretary. 
