I hope there will be a convention held every year in this city. I think we all feel that we are doing much good in a good cause; and I am happy to say to you that the report of this convention will be more full and complete than that of any convention previously held. We have had a short-hand reporter, who has taken notes very largely and we shall put all we can of these valuable discussions into the next volume of Transactions.

The convention will now adjourn sine die.

EXHIBITION OF 1874.

OPENING ADDRESS.

BY ELI STILSON, PRESIDENT.

Members of the State Agricultural Society and Fellow-Citizens: We are convened here to-day for the purpose of preparing for, and formally opening the twenty-first general exhibition of the Wisconsin State Agricultural Society. The object and aim of the State Agricultural Society, and of these general exhibitions, will require but little explanation from me at this time. Their influence has been felt in every locality of the state. Every city, village, farm and hamlet have felt more or less of the salutary lessons that these exhibitions have taught. Look at the stalls filled with noble and powerful horses, some adapted for the road and for speed, others for draft, and yet others for general purposes. The stalls are filled to overflowing with improved breeds of cattle.

The breeding and raising of thorough-bred cattle has become an important branch of agriculture in this as well as several adjoining states, or, in fact, nearly all the Western states. And when we consider the immense cattle product of the West, this improvement must add millions of dollars yearly to the wealth of the country. Nor have the bleating flocks been overlooked in this grand march of improvement. The sheep pens filled to their utmost capacity with the finest breeds of sheep, so well adapted to the varied purposes for which they were bred, are convincing proof of the success that has attended this branch of our live stock department.

The swine-department has kept pace with the other departments of live-stock. The importance of this department will be fully realized when we remember what an important part this product holds in the sales of live-stock in the city of Chicago. Even the chickendepartment has assumed an importance and shown a measure of im

provement truly wonderful. The same skill has been brought to bear upon this branch that has been applied with such success to the other branches of the live-stock department. Every department of live-stock shows the results of the breeders, who, by judicious management, have moulded, fashioned and perfected them, until they are objects of beauty, symmetry and usefulness.

In manufactures the society has been equally successful. The application of machinery to agriculture challenges our highest admiration. It has lightened the burden and expedited the business of every department of agricultural labor; it has entered almost every house, and the wife and daughter have realized the benefit of the sewing-machine over the tiresome needle.

The ladies have contributed nobly to the success of these exhibitions, by their products of both the useful and the beautiful in all their appropriate departments. We owe a debt of gratitude to those ladies who are ever foremost in every good work to aid and cheer us on, in all that is noble, good, and useful.

The horticulturists, by continued perseverance have surmounted obstacles which were almost total barriers to the growth of fruits in the state, while they have gladdened our eyes and adorned our houses with the most beautiful plants and flowers of every variety and color.

The artist has also contributed much to the success of these exhibitions. Our hall of fine arts has often born testimony to his skillful productions.

In operative machinery we have been very successful for the last four years. The hum of its machinery has been music to our ears, while the hall has been thronged day by day with eager multitudes to witness its varied operations.

These annual exhibitions which represent the crowning success of agriculture and its kindred arts, have each added vast improvements to all the others that have gone before it, until Wisconsin has risen from a sparsely settled territory, and that nearly within the life of this society, until to-dayit is contending warmly for a position in the front rank of this noble galaxy of states. On the north and east, the waters of Lake Superior and Lake Michigan lave its shores, and waft its products to other states and nations, while on the south lies the garden state of Illinois, and on the east rolls the great Mississippi River with its commerce. Blessed with a salubrious and

healthy climate, a rich and productive soil, and containing immense water-powers and vast mines of lead, copper and iron, and broad forests of pine, and inhabited by an intelligent, energetic and persevering people, the state of Wisconsin is noted among her sister states for her rapid progress and development.

Her noble cities and beautiful villages are but the indices of her vast resources, intelligence and energy, aided by a system of universal education. With all these surroundings, and all these incentives to action, beckoning us on to still greater success and progress in all that pertains to the development of the state and particularly to that of agriculture and its kindred arts, let us move on to still greater success, and as we yearly bring to these annual fairs a part of the result of our labors, let us note carefully each improvement that our progress may be still greater.

The question of cheap transportation has become the great absorbing question of the day. The water routes to the seaboard have always presented the cheapest transportation at all seasons of the year when they could be used, and it is of great interest to agriculture that these avenues of transportation be improved.

The consolidation of the railroads have resulted in such immense combinations of capital that the people have become alarmed at the centralization of such immense wealth. The railroads by several acts of bad faith and by listening to unwise counsels have done much to provoke and bring on the present difficulty that could and should have been avoided, yet we are not unmindful of the aid they have rendered the state in its development. While the people should ever be tenacious of their rights, yet they should ever be just. All we should ask is the fair line, as between the producer, the consumer and the carrier, and let us endeavor to solve this question of cheap transportation wisely, dispassionately and in strict justice to all.

Let me

Manufactures should command a share of our attention. urge upon the farmers of the state the importance of building up manufactures among us. The rapid growth of industries in the state will do much to aid cheap transportation, and we as farmers will be false to our interests if we do not encourage their development. A purely agricultural state is always a dependent state and subject to great vicissitudes. The wealth of their products is wasted away in getting them to the consumer, but not so with the far

mer who has a home market for most of his varied products. The trials and tribulations of a purely agricultural people have been pictured in somber colors in the experiences of our guild in Iowa and Minnesota, where entire communities are poverty-stricken by an army of grasshoppers.

To the officers and employees of the State Agricultural Society let me say, your duties will many times be arduous and trying, but patience, with a strict sense of justice to all, and a close adherence to the printed rules and regulations, will do much to make your position pleasant and the fair a success. The long association that I have had with most of you in this work, and your former success, give us the highest assurances that we shall receive your most able co-operation in every department of the fair.

To the exhibitors, let me say you have done nobly, and the fair in every department proclaims your progress and success. You are engaged in a noble work, the improvement of agriculture and its kindred arts. The production and preparation of your products have cost you great labor and skill, and an intelligent people will award you a high degree of merit.

To the public-the exhibition is yours to enjoy. This exhibition gotten up at such a cost of skill and labor from all parts of the state, is now arranged and presented for your inspection, pleasure and profit. You will find much to interest you in every department of the fair. There will be many here that will remember the state fair at Milwaukee twenty years ago, and by them the growth of the institution will be fully realized. Milwaukeeans may well be proud of the progress of their noble city, and many of us who are here today will remember when she numbered but a few thousand inhabitants, or less, while to-day she boasts of being a great commercial emporium with a population of 100,000; but let her remember that for many years agriculture has poured into her lap much of the wealth of one of the finest states ou the continent.

To the farmers of Wisconsin let me say, that there is no apparent reason why our progress should not be as great, or even greater in the future than in the past. We have as yet scarcely entered upon the application of science to agriculture. We must go forward and unlock natures's laws with science, experience and experiments. The man who adds to the productive power of the state is a public benefactor, and thus while you are working for your in