Exhibition of 1875- 
OPENING ADDRESS. 
BY ELI STILS0N, PRESIDENT. 
Fellow citizens , and members of the State Agricultural Society: 
We have assembled here to-day to formally open our twenty-sec¬ 
ond annual exhibition of the Society. The circumstances sur¬ 
rounding are generally of a favorable character. The present sea¬ 
son has generally been favorable to the Wisconsin farmer. Under 
the blessings of Divine Providence the earth has brought forth of 
her abundance and the farmer has gathered in his stores and will 
now turn his attention to our annual State Fair. These annual 
exhibitions have become not onl^ highly entertaining, but also 
highly educational to our intelligent agricultural population. 
They are periods that are looked forward to with pleasure, and 
call together far greater masses of the intelligent than any other 
kind of gathering in the State. If they have become so powerful 
in their influence, how necessary it is that they be guided by coun¬ 
sel and managed with a view to usefulness and instructiveness. 
Those State fairs that have made amusements the primary object, 
and usefulness the secondary, have had very fitful and uncertain 
exhibitions—not so with those who have made the useful the 
primary object and amusement secondary—with such their march 
has been ever onward and upward, and they stand out in bold 
relief as beacons of progress and success. 
Fairs were instituted that the products, manufactured articles, 
and implements of individual localities may be compared, ex¬ 
amined, and studied, that progress and improvements may be noted 
and adopted by the intelligent farmer, stock-breeder, manufacturer, 
and artist. Amusements are appropriate in their proper place and 
