Wisconsin State Agricultural Society. 
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provement truly wonderful. The same skill has been broifght to 
bear upon this branch that has been applied with such success to 
the other branches of the live-stock department. Every department 
of live-stock shows the results of the breeders, who, by judicious 
management, have moulded, fashioned and perfected them, un¬ 
til they are objects of beauty, symmetry and usefulness. 
In manufactures the society has bsen equally successful. The ap¬ 
plication of machinery to agriculture challenges our highest admir¬ 
ation. It has lightened the burden and expedited the business of 
every department of agricultural labor; it has entered almost every 
house, and the wife and daughter have realized the benefit of the 
sewing-machine over the tiresome needle. 
The ladies have contributed nobly to the success of these exhibi¬ 
tions, by their products of both the useful and the beautiful in all 
their appropriate departments. We owe a debt of gratitude to those 
ladies who are ever foremost in every good work to aid and cheer us 
en, in all that is noble, good, and useful. 
The horticulturists, by continued perseverance have surmounted 
obstacles which were almost total barriers to the growth of fruits in 
the state, while they have gladdened our eyes and adorned our 
houses with the most beautiful plants and flowers of every variety 
and color. 
The artist has also contributed much to the success of these exhi¬ 
bitions. Our hall of fine arts has often born testimony to his skill¬ 
ful productions. 
In operative machinery we have been very successful for the last 
four years. The hum of its machinery has been music to our ears, 
while the hall has been thronged day by day with eager multitudes 
to witness its varied operations. 
These annual exhibitions which represent the crowning success 
of agriculture and its kindred arts, have each added vast improve¬ 
ments to all the others that have gone before it, until Wisconsin has 
risen from a sparsely settled territory, and that nearly within the 
life of this society, until to-dayit is contending warmly for a position 
in the front rank, of this noble galaxy of states. On the north and 
east, the waters of Lake Superior and Lake Michigan lave its shores, 
and waft its products to other states and nations, while on the south 
lies the garden state of Illinois, and on the east rolls the great Mis¬ 
sissippi River with its commerce. Blessed with a salubrious and 
