OF THE WISCONSIN STATE AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY, WITH THE REPORT OF THE STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY, AND CONDENSED REPORTS ON THE INTERNATIONAL EXHIBITIONS OF 1862 & 1867. VOL. VII. 1861-2-3-4-5-6 7-8. PREPARED BY J. W. HOYT, SECRETARY. MADISON, WIS.: ATWOOD & RUBLEE, STATE PRINTERS, JOURNAL OFFICE. PREFACE. After a lapse of eight years, including the whole period of the late war, the Wisconsin State Agricultural Society is at length enabled, by means of Legislative provision, to present to the public another volume of its Transactions—a volume, which, happily, is also the beginning of a series of publications hereafter to appear annually. If it be found to contain a less variety of original matter than some previous volumes, it is because we have had no alternative but to make it just what it is a series, mainly, of official reports. Nevertheless, these reports-completing, as they do, the Society's record from the date of the last publication in 1860, to the end of 1868, together with several valuable addresses, and the proceedings of the State Horticultural Society, which also contain matter of practical importance-constitute, in the aggre gate, a volume that doubtless will be welcome wherever received, and not less because of the information it contains than for the reason that it bridges over a long period, during which it has been impracticable to issue any volume whatever. The condensed reports of the Secretary, as State Commissioner, on the London International Exhibition of 1862, and the Paris Universal Exposition of 1867 are embraced in the belief that the important character of the industrial enterprises of which they make record renders their inclusion especially appropriate. So far as it relates to the literary character of those portions original with the Secretary-which necessarily constitute a large proportion of the entire volume-and to the typographical correctness of all portions, he hopes it will be borne in mind by the reader, that nearly every page was prepared from brief notes just in advance of the compositors, while the work was in press, and in the midst of other pressing duties; so that, for the most part, it was impossible for him either to revise his manuscript, or to give to the proof of any portion of the volume that careful attention it ought to have received. J. W. HOYT. STATE AGRICULTURAL ROOMS, Jan., 1869. |
