TRANSACTIONS OF THE Essex Agricultural Society, (MASSACHUSETTS,) FOR THE YEAR 1864. PUBLISHED BY ORDER OF THE SOCIETY, DECEMBER, 1864. SOUTH DANVERS: PRINTED BY CHARLES D. HOWARD, ALLEN'S BUILDING, ADDRESS BY HON. DARWIN E. WARE, OF MARBLEHEAD. MR. PRESIDENT AND GENTLEMEN OF THE ESSEX AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY: We have assembled to celebrate in the county of Essex the annual fair and festival of its farmers. The season is felicitous. The delightful coolness of the morning and evening hours, the genial warm-hearted noons, the clear and crystalline air, in which the heavens seem higher, the pure sky bluer, the fleecy clouds whiter, and the radiance of the night more silvery than their wont, are grateful and exhilerating after the sultry heats of summer. The wistful, anxious days are ended. The perils of the germinating seed and the tender plant are over. The crop has passed beyond the power of the worm, the insect and the drought, and now lies safely mellowing for the harvest. Upon the foliage of the forests glow here and there the streaks of many-colored light, that soon will blaze with golden and crimson splendors in the sunset of the declining year. They herald the approaching hour of thanksgiving, when the farmer rests from his labors. The occasion is one of universal interest. When the farmers rejoice, let all men make a holiday. The least thoughtful perceives that all alike are indebted to him who grows the crop |