348 Annual Report of the 
ful progress. This it has done with faithfulness and exactness, be¬ 
ing, in fact a fair index or exponent of the material progress, wealth, 
taste, culture and general prosperity of our people. 
It is natural that we should feel a glow of pride when we com¬ 
pare the Wisconsin of to-day with the Wisconsin of 1851. But it 
does not become us to lose sight of the immense advantage we have 
had over some of the older states. First of all, the area of Wiscon¬ 
sin is about equal to nearly all of New England, Our climate is at 
once favorable to both physical and intellectual vigor and a safe¬ 
guard against those diseases which prey upon the inhabitants of 
many other sections of the country. Our mineral resources are 
vast and varied. Our forests of timber are a source of supply al¬ 
most inexhaustible, not only to our own, but to many other states. 
Our agricultural districts were mostly ready for the hand of the 
husbandman, without the laborious work of felling forests and re¬ 
moving stumps; and our soil has been productive of large returns 
with but little labor. Our manufacturing industry has had the ad¬ 
vantage of numerous water powers, some of them unsurpassed by 
any on the American continent, and an extraordinary variety of 
the best materials on every hand. Our commerce has had the help 
of direct water communication with the great Mississippi valley, 
with all the states bordering on the chain of lakes, and even with for¬ 
eign lands. And, finally, all these attractions combined have given 
us a hardy, vigorous, energetic and intelligent population, and has 
invited an amout of capital sufficient to enable us to develop our 
resources, to build a multitude of prosperous cities and villages, and 
to cover our state with a net-work of railwa3 r s built and contem¬ 
plated, capable of greatly helping us to achieve yet more rapid pro¬ 
gress in the future. 
But, gentlemen of the society and fellow-citizens, we must not 
forget that this representative exhibition is only a trophy set up by 
an enterprising people on the grand highway of progress—that it 
only represents what is, not what ought to he. 
u Of him to whom much is given much shall be required.” It is 
well for us to compare our attainments with our possibilities. Do¬ 
ing this, our pride is duly moderated, our resolution is quickened 
and our ambition is ever fixing itself upon a yet higher mark. 
The farmer’s pursuits tend to isolate him from other men, and 
hence to make the agricultural class less potential in directing the 
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