OPENING ADDRESS. 
BY B. R. HINKLEY, PRESIDENT OF THE SOCIETY. 
Gentlemen of the Wisconsin State Agricultural Society , and 
Fellow Citizens: We have met for the Tenth Annual Exhibition 
of the Industry of our young and prosperous State, under the 
most favorable auspices. Providence has smiled upon us as 
never upon any people before. Since our last great annual 
gathering, the seasons have been so propitious, that even the 
most difficult and fault-finding farmer has hardly found it 
necessary to suggest any improvement. The winter was dry 
and mild, enabling the husbandman to keep over his stock 
without either loss or great expense, and to perform with 
comfort those out-door labors so essential to a due preparation 
for the busy months of seed-time and cultivation. The season 
of growth was the most remarkable that we have ever known, 
producing an unexampled luxuriance of vegetation; and the 
months of the harvest have favored the economical gathering 
of a wealth of crops so great that the jealousy of other States 
will hardly allow them to credit its vastness. 
Moreover, the stringency of the times, financially consid¬ 
ered, is beginning to relax all over our country, and the elon¬ 
gated faces of the people are growing perceptibly shorter. 
Under such circumstances, it is eminently fit that this great 
Exhibition should partake of the nature of a jubilee. The 
place where we are met is one of the most attractive of all the 
beautiful landscapes that gem the incomparable West, and the 
energy and good taste of those who have had the immediate 
