local markets and speculators. The agricultural products of the world are aggregated by telegraph. It is already known that this year's wheat crop is 500,000,000 bushels, of which 200,000,000 is surplus, and this we hope to sell abroad and get our pay in cash. It is better that cheap freights should enable us to do this, than that this vast surplus should remain here to break down the price of all the balance. We shall have more than 1,500,000,000 bushels of corn, much of which, in the form of beef, pork, hams, and lard, we shall likewise hope to sell to England, France, and Germany. But this brings us up to the expanding question of the food supply of Europe, and I must forbear. You see how mightily the conditions of the farmer's life are changed, and becoming involved in international economies.

You have not been idle in the past, nor can you slumber in the future, and hold your own. The forces you deal with are as powerful and subtle as those which make and mold the shining steel in a great workshop like that of the Disston's or in the Baldwin Locomotive Works. Some of your machinery is as unerring as the Jacquard looms, which weave and unfold, as from the painter's brush, the thousand designs for the Messrs. Dobson. In your actual fruits and flowers, your forms of beauty outdo the cunning work of Dolan's looms, where hard machinery rivals the work of human hands and human eyes in exactness and fitness. You do well, then, to come here with your vast and wonderful display, among these other great departments of human industry. You do well to come here, that the men who raise food, and the men who consume food, may see how their interests are interlaced; how none of us can live and prosper by exclusiveness or class conflict; that there can be no wealth without wants, and commerce which is the interchange of the things which supply those wants.

And while I might look about me, safely say your day of triumph has come, and curtly declare the State Fair now formally open, I wish to add a word or two, which I shall take occasion to say whenever I find a little knot of our good friends, the Grangers, together, if they will listen. That third of the people in Pennsylvania who are on their farms is the best off the most happy and the most independent third of all our populationbest off in the value of their lands, which, if high, are high because they will bring a high price in the market-best off in steady compensating returns for their labor; free from the commercial disasters of other callings; free from the mental worry of other pursuits-and vastly more free than any class from the visitations of the sheriff. There are gentlemen who constantly bemoan the farmer's situation, the high prices of land, which constitutes his capital in trade, the low prices of some of the products grown in the west, and the low rates of freight at which the railroads deliver them at our seaboard, and thence, by ships, to the consumer in Europe. But, sir, the Pennsylvania farmer is still the master of the situation. He is here with his wife and children, in command of every physical and moral resource which the highest civilization can give. His life is no longer a struggle for bare existence. He is really in the enjoyment of luxuries. Everywhere see the beautiful homes-their great filled barns, their trimmed hedges, and white fences, and their bright patches of flower gardens; consider their social privileges among friends and kindred-their schools and churches, their books and newspapers, all within their daily reach and daily enjoyment. Our population increases, but our square miles do not; and I suppose some of us must go west. The sturdy householder raises a halfdozen children, but not half a dozen farms, and some must leave the old roof-tree. But my advice to as many as can is, continue to cast their lives in this good old State.

The Pennsylvania farmer will not lose his supremacy. Possibly, for the

present, some of our western farmers can make wheat and beef cheaper than we. I do not regret it. But this cannot continue long. The yearly value of their acres is rapidly decreasing. They must do what we must do -put back on the land some of that which we, year by year, take off. Our great problem is, how best to fertilize our lands; how to regenerate them and to make good the waste. Our struggle ought to be, not to raise the price of food, but to increase the quantity of our products. Time and brains and science will yet do that for us. The Pennsylvania farmer must, as he can adapt his products to the never-failing market which our great cities, towns, and mining and manfacturing centers everywhere give him, great food-consuming communities like Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Scranton, Reading, and Harrisburg. Here he is without a competitor. He has a monopoly in all perishable articles of food, and these form the great bulk of what we eat-fruits, vegetables, milk, and the long list of good things of which, in this temperate zone, we make our daily bill of fare. You can have no quarrel with these towns and cities which furnish your customers, and which, in turn, make the clothes you wear, the carpets you tread, the stoves which warm your houses, and mine the coal which fires them; which make your bedsteads and sausage cutters, your garden hoes and your school books, your harness and your fruit cans. Seek new forms of industry. Just now the Lancaster county farmer seems to have a bonanza in his tobacco raising. The alarmist says he is w.ong, but I suspect the Lancaster farmer knows best. Right here, to-day, is proposed a most promising and attractive industry, which may employ profitably our wives and children. I mean the culture of silk, which the ladies of the Silk Society are pressing upon your notice. This enterprise should attract your careful attention.

Nor can the Pennsylvania farmer have any quarrel with the western farmer, and the railroads which cheapen the price of a few articles of food, by means of which all these laborers are enabled to live in our own midst, instead of being sent West to live and work, where, perchance, wheat and beef are still cheaper. Let us be in favor of that policy which keeps our people employed and prosperous here in Pennsylvania. If the western farmer can equalize some of the hardships he undergoes, and some of the losses of society and friends he suffers, by cheap land and cheap food, let us bid him God-speed. Let us remember he is our son and brother; that we sent him out from among us to make his heroic fight for wife and children in founding a family; that he and we, jointly, constitute the citizenship of the strongest, the freest, and the happiest people on the globe. It will increase our pride, and this kind of pride pays. I cannot detain you, fellow-citizens, to work out these propositions, but they are true. Trust something to the energies and intelligence of the American people. Don't complain; don't be pessimists. The Pennsylvania farmer especially has "a good thing." Let him keep it. Have some faith in the social laws under which we live, as well as in the material laws which surround us. Finally, have some belief that the Ruler of the universe will know how to order the conditions under which fifty million of us are to "live and let live" quite as well as some of the human journeymen who are around the street corners, and the grangers who are trying to reconstruct society by acts of Assembly.

Mr. President, I now tender you and your Society the congratulations you deserve, and wish that you may enjoy the splendid success which you have won.

The Governor was loudly applauded when he had finished his remarks, and as he sat down Mr. Bissell stepped to the front of the stage, and extended a welcome to those present, in the following words:

THE PRESIDENT'S ADDRESS.

LADIES AND GENTLEMEN: On behalf of the Pennsylvania State Agricultural Society, I thank you for your presence. Your encouragement, upon a previous occasion, has inspired the officers to increased effort to bring together, within the bounds of this ever memorable building, an aggregation of agricultural products worthy of exhibition in any State or country. Munificent prizes have been offered, competition being extended to the world; and here is confidently submitted, on the part of the husbandmen and mechanics of this great and progressive people, an exhibition of the varied products of the soil and mechanics' art. Here you have the ShortHorns, the descendants of the lordly Durham, the gentle Devons also, and the beautiful Jerseys, and all that can interest and instruct you in the multiplied details of American husbandry, together with the ingenious mechanical appliances to lighten human labor, born of the necessities of an energetic and progressive people, whose efforts in agricultural development are now the admiration of the world.

The Society's Exhibition is designed to include the features of a competitive show and a commercial fair.

The value of the competitive show, as an incentive to industrial progress, is fully recognized by the enterprising people of this great manufacturing and commercial city; nor does the value of the show, as a means of education, need any attestation here.

I am gratified to be able to state that, at our last exhibition, large sales were made, and agencies and other new business relations were established. This result of our efforts, which so directly concerns the trade of your city, we hope this year will be largely increased. But the aspirations of this Society have not been bounded by the State of Pennsylvania or the United States. Before and during the exhibition of last year, a lively interest was developed in sheep and wool, and the Society determined to hold an international exhibition of sheep, wool, and wool products, as well as machinery. The coöperation of the Agricultural Department at Washington was requested, and, through the Commissioner, Hon. W. G. Le Duc, freely given. Congress promptly enacted a law in furtherance of the project, and directed a full and exhaustive report of the exhibition, and a scientific examination of the articles exhibited to be made.

This exhibition will be continuous with the State Fair, excepting Department No. 1, comprising horses, cattle, and swine only, and will be held during the third week, or from the 20th to 25th of September. This is a vast and diversified interest in our country, and has claimed the attention of skillful breeders, wool-growers, and wool manufacturers in almost every State and Territory of the Union, as well as abroad.

To the organizations, State and local, which have generously coöperated in the work of collecting and arranging this exhibition, the Pennsylvania State Agricultural Society makes its warmest acknowledgments.

To the citizens of Philadelphia who have contributed towards the sum to be awarded in premiums, the State Society tenders its grateful thanks. To the exhibitors who have labored so industriously to prepare and properly install their exhibits, and to the thousands of visitors who, during the period of the show shall derive profitable instruction, entertainment, recreation and trade from this grand display, the Society would extend a cordial welcome; and now in the name and by the authority of the officers and members of the Pennsylvania State Agricultural Society, I declare this the Twenty-seventh Annual Exhibition of the Society open to the public.

COMMITTEE OF ARRANGEMENT,
EXHIBITION 1880.

JOHN C. MORRIS, Susquehanna co.,

ALFRED L. KENNEDY, Philadelphia,

WILLIAM S. BISSELL, Allegheny county, President,

JOHN MCDOWELL, Washington co.,
WILLIAM H. EGLE, Harrisburg,

ELBRIDGE MCCONKEY, Harrisburg,
Corresponding Secretary,

D. W. SEILER, Harrisburg,

Recording Secretary.

COMMITTEES OF CO-OPERATION.

APPOINTED BY THE PENNSYLVANIA STATE DAIRYMEN'S ASSOCIATION. J. H. Lenhardt, Meadville, President, H. Cooley Greene, Meadville, Secretary, L. C. Magaw, Meadville, John Cole, Venango.

The premiums under Group VII, Class 30, were approved by the Pennsylvania State Dairymen's Association, and adopted upon its recommendation. Its committee supervised the arrangement of this class.

APPOINTED BY THE PENNSYLVANIA STATE FRUIT GROWERS' SOCIETY.

Hon. George D. Stetzel, Reading, President.

George B. Thomas, West Chester, Treas., | E. B. Engle, Marietta, Secretary.

The premiums under Group XIV were appointed by the Pennsylvania State Fruit Growers' Society, and adopted upon its recommendation. Its committee supervised the arrangement of this Group.

APPOINTED BY THE PENNSYLVANIA HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY.

The premiums under Group XV were approved by the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society, and adopted upon its recommendation. Its committee supervised the arrangement of this Group.

APPOINTED BY THE PHILADELPHIA SOCIETY FOR PROMOTING AGRICULTURE.

Acting as the general committee of coöperation in Philadelphia.

PITTSBURGH COMMITTEE.

W. S. Bissell, Pittsburgh, Chairman,

John McDowell, Washington,

Col. David E. Bayard, Pittsburgh,

John Murdock, Jr., Pittsburgh,
W. W. Spear, Pittsburgh,
Paul H. Hacke, Pittsburgh.

Acting as the general committee of coöperation in Pittsburgh.

DEPARTMENT I.-Live Stock,*

16. Chesters. 17. Berkshires. 18. Poland China. 21. Suffolks. 22. Jersey Reds,

IV. Poultry and Pet Quadrupeds,. 23. Gallinaceous Fowls. 24. Aquatic Fowls. 25. Pigeons and Rabbits,
V.-Industrial Insects,

VI.-Fish,

28. Food Fishes,

DEPARTMENT II.-Farm and Garden Products and their Manufactures.

Acid

38. Grain and Seeds. 39. Flour and other Farinaceous Products,

XV.-Ornamental Plants and Flowers, 48. Growing Ornamental Plants. 49. Cut Flowers and Designs,

*See also schedule of International Exhibition of Sheep and Wool.

+ See ground plan of Building on the following page.