EXHIBITION OP 1868. 
471 
regular and frequent holding of industrial exhibitions. Formerly, when the 
whole section was divided up into large estates, each owned and managed by 
wealthy planters, who owned their labor and were severally independent of 
each other, and who, content with an easy support, did not feel a pressing 
necessity for the improved means and methods of this progressive age, gath¬ 
erings like these were less numerous and frequent, and when they did occur 
were oftener occasions for social enjoyment than for an earnest and laborious 
inquiry into the progress of industry. But after years of war and internal 
violence, under the new order of things the people of those States have 
learned to appreciate as never before, not only how far they have been be 
hind the Northern States in making and adopting the improvements of the 
age, but also how, under institutions really democratic,where all are competi¬ 
tors with equal advantage, it is a matter of first importance that each should 
avail himself, at the earliest moment, of the best means known to any for 
making his industry effective. And to-day the most intelligent men of those 
States are foremost in organizing and building up industrial organizations as 
most important and necessary agencies in the great work of establishing 
therein conditions taat shall insure a prosperity and progress co-equal with 
our own; in which I am sure we, of the North, bid them a most hearty God¬ 
speed. 
If we who enjoy the benefits of industrial societies and exhibitions, not only 
in every State, but also in almost every county and town,do not feel their ne¬ 
cessity, it is because, like the air and sunshine, they have been unfailing and 
therefore unrecognized sources of growth and strength. 
The past year, all things considered, has been characterized by success in 
every department of our State industry. The protracted drouth of Summer 
affected the yield of our cereal crops less than was feared, and the aggregate 
products of our husbandry are scarcely less, if, indeed, they should not prove 
to have been greater than in the most highly favored season. Thus far our 
cattle have escaped those destructive diseases from which so much has been 
suffered in some of the other states, and, except in the horticultural depart¬ 
ment, in which the adversities of climate are a sore trial of the faith and res¬ 
olution of fruit growers, and in the department of sheep husbandry, somewhat 
depressed by the low prices paid for wool, we have been as an entire State, 
eminently prospered. 
Our Society is known as the State Agricultural Society, and yet it is its 
declared and real purpose to promote advancement in every department of 
industry, on the theory that the interests of all are harmonious and mutually 
dependent; and, accordingly, you will find not only our farms, stock-yards, 
orchards and gardens represented here, but likewise our workshops, our fac¬ 
tories, our mines, and even the household and fine arts. Whatever will add 
to the development of our noble young State in all the arts of civilization, 
that it is the business of this Society, and the imperative du^y of the State to 
encourage. To us, who are responsible for the success of this Exhibition, no 
less than to those who, whether as exhibitors or spectators, have come here to 
