Excerpt from Proceedings of the Annual Convention of the South Carolina Agricultural and Mechanical Society: Held in Columbia, S. C., Nov. 10-12, 1869 More than eight years have elapsed since the last meeting of the Society whose successors you are. For four of these the voice of peaceful industry was hushed amid the clash of arms the energies once devoted to its advancement were directed to the preparation and wielding of the implements of war; and the accumulation of two centuries of labor was freely devoted to a cause in which all of it that was destructible perished. For other four of these years we have been recovering from this fierce paroxysm of civil strife, and have moved as a sick man in his sleep. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.