Page:History of Richland County, Ohio.djvu/205

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��HISTORY OF KICHLAND COUNTY.

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��CHAPTER XIX.

AGRICULTURE.

Agricultural Societies— Their History and Progress— The County Society, its Exhibitions and its several Grounds — The Bellville Fair — The Plymouth Fair — Horticulture and the Horticultural Society, their Influence on the Growth of Fruit Culture is the County — Statistics of Agriculture, Taxable Property, etc.

��" He that by the plow would thrive. Himself must either hold or drive." — FrankJin.

PRECEDING pages, detailing the history of agriculture and agricultural societies in Ohio, give a resume of the growth of that indus- try in the West, from its settlement down to the present time. It only remains to notice the growth of the same industry in Richland Count}'.

The first mention of any effort on the part of any citizens of this county to form a society, whose object should be promotive of agricult- ure, occurs in the columns of the old Mansfield Gazette, under date of July 8, 1829. Some person had been agitating the subject, evidently, from the tone of the article, as the paper in an editorial states that a committee has been ap- pointed to draft a constitution and by-laws, and, further, that the citizens held an adjourned meeting July 4. for the purpose of forming an agricultural and mechanical society. '' S. Gr. Bushnell was called to the chair, and S. Rug- gles, Esq.. appointed Secretary. Gen. Alex. Enos, of the committee heretofore appointed for that purpose, submitted a constitution, which, after some alteration, was adopted."

The constitution provided that members must be residents of the county, and that, as an ad- mission to the Society, they should pay into the treasury, annually, fifty cents. After providing for the officers, the constitution further stip- ulated that the yearly meeting should be held on the " last Friday of October."

��The officers of this pioneers' association elected that day were as follows : M. Bartley, Pres- ident ; John Stewart and John Oldshoe, Vice Presidents ; James Purdy, Corresponding Sec- retary ; Lanus Hays, Recording Secretary, and Robert Roland, Treasurer. The Board of Di- rectors consisted of William Riddle, S. G. Bushnell, Alexander Enos, Robert Bentley, Jonathan Coulter, Spooner Ruggles and Abra- ham Hufman. A committee of two was ap- pointed in each township (twenty-five) to solicit subscriptions and " forward the views of the Society."

Of this Society, the above synopsis is all that is now preserved. It seems never to have attained any further progress. The country was then too new to properl}' sustain such an enterprise. Very few towns and counties in Ohio at that date were in a position to maintain such things ; and, after a brief struggle, the Society died out.

From this time until after the passage of a law favoring agricultural societies, in 1846, no endeavor seems to have been made to foster such interests. From time to time, however, other and older localities began to hold such fairs, and gradually a spirit of improvement began to appear. This culminated in the law referred to, which gave additional impetus to the question. It revived it again in this county, now diminished in size by the creation of Craw- ford and Ashland Counties, and the prospect of a further reduction liy the proposed county of Morrow, created liefore the agricultural society

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