ANNUAL REPOKT 
FOR TBE YEAR 1861. 
His Excellency^ Louis P. Harvey, 
Governor of Wisconsin: 
Sir —The Executive Committee of the Wisconsin State Ag¬ 
ricultural Society, in presenting the Eleventh Annual Fiscal 
Eeport, herewith submitted, desire to congratulate you and the 
people of the State upon the comparative prosperity with 
which Wisconsin has been favored during the past year. 
In times of political revolution, like the present, when the 
Grovernment is rocked to its very foundations, when one-thii’- 
tieth of the whole population are in arms, when the commerce 
of the country is seriously damaged, and the public mind is 
occupied, almost to the exclusion of everything else, with the 
great problem of continued national existence,—in times like 
these, it is certainly very extraordinary that our youthful State 
should have moved forward in a career of growth and pros¬ 
perity scarcely surpassed during any year of its history since 
the palmy days before the financial crash of 1857. 
This anomaly is doubtless owing, in some degree, to our re¬ 
moteness from the actual scene of hostilities, and our conse¬ 
quent immunity from the desolations liable to fall upon the 
border States; but it is likewise and largely due to the fact 
that we are an agricultural people, producing immense quan¬ 
tities of the great food staples which must always sell at some 
price, and which are usually enhanced in value in time of war. 
It is also an occasion for congratulation that the times have 
shown the population of our State to be unsurpassed in hardi- 
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