OPENING ADDRESS. 
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our Maker that we belong to a civilized, and not a savage race 
—that we are Christian and not heathen men. What has 
wrought this change ? Why, sirs, the Agricultural army is 
marching towards the setting sun—“ Westward the star of Em¬ 
pire takes its way.” Agriculture has taken possession of 
these fair lands, and tamed its wild surface, and rendered it 
subservient to the wants of man—of civilized man. The Me¬ 
chanic Arts have followed in its train, and the Fine Arts, by 
, an unerring law of nature, find their level here. What heart 
can remain unmoved ? What bosom refrain from emotions of 
honest pride while we contemplate the scene before us? We 
meet here to celebrate the conquests of Agriculture and the Me¬ 
chanic Arts. We come to greet and encourage each other in 
our various pursuits and make notes and suggestions for our 
future improvement. 
We have before us fitting evidences of the energy, intel¬ 
ligence, skill and refinement of the industrial classes of our 
young and vigorous State. 
A large majority of the people of Wisconsin are tillers of 
the soil. Ours is, emphatically, an Agricultural State, and we 
glory in our noble calling. Wisconsin farmers and mechanics 
are not numbered among those who feel themselves degraded by 
& practical demonstration of the text “that by the sweat of 
his brow man shall eat his bread.” We construe it to mean 
earn his bread. Not unlike republican Rome shall Wisconsin 
honor her toiling sons, and bring them, Cincinnatus like, from 
the p ow, and make them toiling men of State. 
Labor is honorable—it is ennobling. The surest indications 
of national prosperity are found in the fact that the laborer is 
elevated, and the idler discarded,— and we are here to-day to 
personify labor—to eulogize it—to set it on high—to bow in rev¬ 
erence before it, and proclaim to all the world that Wisconsin de¬ 
lights to honor the man who labors with his own hands to pro¬ 
cure for himself and family an h on ext maintenance and support. 
Farmers, Mechanics, and all Working Men and Women gen¬ 
erally : The managers of the State Agricultural Society have 
