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106 STATE AGKICULTUEAL SOCIETY 
macliinery and implements from the United States to re-affirm 
and pretty well establish our supremacy in this most import¬ 
ant of all the departments of national industry. To have 
given to the world the combined reaper and mower, the cot¬ 
ton-gin and the sewing machine, and to have made good our 
title to these by such improvements from year to year as 
maintain their unquestioned superiority over all imitations of 
them by foreign inventors, of itself secures to America a most 
enviable position among the progressive nations of the world, 
and, during the Grreat Exhibition, enabled the American 
visitor to hold up his head, notwithstanding the meagreness of 
our general display. 
The result of a critical examination, by competent judges 
and by the international juries, has shown that American pre¬ 
eminence is not confined to superiority in the these utilitarian 
inventions, however, but that even in the quality of our pianos 
and of some of our works of art our claim to superiority is 
equally good. 
All in all, it is well that something was done to give the 
United States a footing in this great industrial exhibition, and 
too much praise can hardly be bestowed upon the few enter¬ 
prising gentlemen who, in default of a national demonstration, 
so bravely took upon themselves the responsibility and labor 
of making at least a very partial representation of American 
industry. 
X W. HOYT, 
Secretary Wisconsin State Aricultural Society. 
