able statesman-a benefactor of his race. The inspiring motto of that Imperial State which he so much honored-Excelsior-stirs not the pulse, the heart with more of deep vibration and solemn response than the hallowed name of Clinton. "To live in hearts we leave behind, Is not to die." As soon as that grand enterprise was completed, the emigrant from the East crossed over New York, not in the old fashioned canvass covered wagon, but by canal, opening upon your inland seas, by which Michigan and the great West became at once and easily accessible. If Eastern emigration at an earlier day, could have reached by easy transit, the fertile plains and oak openings of Michigan, with their park-like vistas, and the inviting prairies of other Western States, it is hardly probable that the laborious clearing and heavy pioneer work of Southern, Middle and Western New York would have been patiently encountered. Our universal Yankee nation, in their own language, are too "smart" for that. They always improve as they advance. They can neither stand still nor walk backwards. They march West to the music of the spheres, and, should the exigency require it, they may yet be found dashing through the cloud, appropriating to themselves its silver lining, if such there is, (and for it we have poetical assurance,) and eagle-like, fillibustering in the regions of space, where neither the faith of treaties nor the laws of nations will interfere. Already have they followed the sun even to his decline, until he sinks to rest in California, where the drapery of his couch is drapery of gold-his setting in the Pacific more brilliant even than when he rose from the Atlantic with the gates of day opened upon New England by the rosy fingers of the goddess of morning. Whether we should make claim to a "Manifest Destiny" I will not assume to decideNames are trivial. Useful achievement is worth a dictionary of mere words; and our nation, favored as it has been, has achieved, not by chance or accident, but under the guidance of Infinite Intelligence, more of national prosperity, of individual and collective good, and within a shorter space of time, than any other people of recorded history "There's a Divinity that shapes our ends, Rough hew them as we will." Should we rest satisfied with the discoveries and advancement which have already been made in the various departments of agriculture? It may be imagined that our advancement is so great compared with our rude beginnings that nothing further is to be sought and that the limit of improvement has been reached. This is a theory which cannot find a home in minds made generous by observation and study of the laws of nature; for in this, practical science, as in every other department of knowledge, the advancement already made, by sound theory and practice instead of establishing an arbitrary limit, but opens the gate to broader fields, enlarging the horizon. Who shall deny to us the development of new truths as glorious and wide-spread in their wondrous results as any with which we are now conversant? To what era shall we point when mind was more active, when the genius to invent was more honored, or successful experiment better rewarded? Was there ever a time when men were prouder than now of useful invention or new combinations by which labor, time and money are saved and a great public benefaction secured? I have heard farmers say, in the middle of New York, that without the improvements made during the past fifteen years in agricultural implements, saving labor and time, they could not have cultivated their farms with any profit; indeed, some of them would not have been cultivated at all on account of the great scarcity of laborers. This will soon become, if it is not now, true here. Where there are so many other modes of profitable employment as there are here, by which a farm or a competence is readily secured, labor by the day or month will of necessity advance in price. This is not a fault: it is the glory of our civil institutions, their true aim and purpose, to make all, who will, freeholders and cultivators of their own farms. Looking at these results in their just light, inventive genius with the long train of useful laborsaving implements which swell his triumphal march-a procession in which you must be enrolled as patrons or languish and be left behindacts in beautiful harmony with our Republican Institutions, while being the most efficient ally of agriculture. In this age of beneficent progress, we see the sciences popularized their truths diffused, and one by one, the science of chemistry as applied to agriculture foremost in the van, bursting from the leading strings of dreaming alchemists, cloistered pedants, over their moss grown walls into the very market place. Thanks to that same beneficent spirit of progress, the ways are prepared and the paths made straight for all, who will, to the temple of what has been beautifully called star-eyed science. That man goes with true honor to his grave, and the turf above him assumes a lovelier green, who, by brain-work, hand-work and heartwork, all in honorable partnership, has added to the sum of human good and proved himself a benefactor. He needs neither a stately mausoleum in death, nor the Cross of the Legion of Honor in life. As one of Persia's sovereigns ordered for himself, so should be his burial-in the open country, where the elements of his body may more quickly unite to those of nature, whose harmonies he studied, and contribute anew to the formation of her harmonious, her beautiful works. But the time presses for your viewing committees to make their reports and announce their awards. I fear I have trespassed already too long upon your patience. Bear with me yet a few moments in the performance of a duty to the memory of one who until this year has been an honorable competitor for your prizes; whose name is kindly inscribed upon your memories; and who was one of the supporting columns of your Society-ROWLAND B. PERRY. His place is vacant here to-day. The award, the wreath which you weave for him on this occasion is not a prize, a garland for his living brow, but mournful cypress for his tomb. He was one of the earliest of your pioneers. More than thirty years since he penetrated the wilderness of Michigan into what is now your beautiful county of Genesee. He had grown with your growth. He was one of the ancient landmarks of your county, and when his death was announced so suddenly, it fell startling and solemn upon the ears all. Like the fall of some old memorial tree, some old familiar oak-at once a landmark and a monument-in the stillness of the forest, when not a leaf was stirring, unheralded, unexpected and crushing. Few of that class of men whose names are enrolled upon your list of honored pioneers are now left to you. The greater part of them have gone to their reward, but their good deeds yet speak for them. As a clase, they bear the same distinguishing characteristics wherever we find them, at the east or the west-unostentatious, unaffected, downright honest, clear and sound in their sense of equity, substantial in their goodness, despisers of modern flummery and cockneyism, hospitable, benevolent, benefactors of society. Of this class was the gentleman whose friendship and co-operation you miss to-day. And here let me pay a passing tribute, in closing, to that class, your pioneer farmers, of whom Mr. Perry, in his useful life, furnished a good sample, a correct exponent. Their influence still survives among you. The zeal which those men exhibited for the cause of education, agriculture, and all the useful arts, the respectful consideration paid by those men to the cause of religion in their iron manhood, when men depended upon the rifle and the axe as well as the plow, are yet felt in your midst. Such influences never die out. They cannot be wholly lost. In the framework of human society, complicated as it is, it is difficult after a lapse of time to trace a present condition to its primitive causes; but I have not a doubt that whatever there is substantial, useful and cheering in your social superstructure, as it now exists, rests upon and is borne up by those old-fashioned, well-imbedded, frost-defying foundations and solid beams established and planted here by your useful pioneers. By their glorious fruits, their works, we know them all, and I envy not that man, neither his head nor his heart, who is so dull or perverse, who has about him so much of modern captious conceit and shallow swagger as to find in or refuse to accord to the lives of all such useful men, high moral instruction. Their voices come to our ears, particularly this day and on this occasion, from that dim plain which we call "the past," audible to the ear of contemplative sympathy, clear, distinct, and full of lofty encouragement. They rise to us in the encouraging accents of the spirits of heroes who have struggled in your early settlement, as few on earth are called upon to struggle, who have had their alloted pulsations of hope, of joy, and of sorrow, and at last have gone to their account. Such voices come to us impressively this day, consecrating this occasion, and they will still flow on to the latest Fair of your Society, for the accumu lating dust of years cannot keep down that glorious spirit-utterance, which shall ever rise with the power of undying Truth from that sacred turf where lie entombed your pioneers of lofty hearts, strong hands and heroic lives. HILLSDALE COUNTY. OFFICE OF THE HILLSDALL CO., AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY, March 7th, J. C. HOLMES, Esq., Sec'y Mich. State Agricultural Society: SIR:-Enclosed herewith I send you the report of our doings as a Society for the year 1856, together with the proceedings of our Annual Meeting for 1857. LIST OF PREMIUMS, For the Sixth Annual Fair of the Hillsdale County Agricultural Society, to be held at Jonesville, October 16th and 17th, 1856. DIVISION A.-CATTLE. CLASS I-DURHAMS. Judges Joel Hand, Allen; Henry Huff, Fayette; Levi Treadwell, Pittsford. Best bull 5 years old or over, Diploma and.... $5.00 5 00 4.00 4.00 3 00 3 00 2.00 200 Best bull 1 year old, Transactions State Society 1854 and..... 1 00 2d " 1 " ... 1 00 |