IGO 



moisture, this defect uiay be cured and the soil rendered more cohesive by ashes, 

 lime, clay, and vegetable earth. Lime is an important agent, and is ia necessary 

 ingredient in the organization of plants; it is closer than sand, and much less 

 adhesive than clay, and occupies a middle region between the two, free from 

 their imperfections, and blending their common qualities — each kind of soil is 

 adapted to the growth of pailicular plants. A rich sandy soil is best fitted for 

 the production of rye, barley, and roots; while they yield to the richer clays in 

 the power of producing wheat. The farmer then should understand the nature 

 and properties of his soil, that he may know how to improve it, and be regulated 

 by a correct knowledge of its ingredients, and their adaptation to the plants he 

 is desirous of cultivating. 



The Dane county farmer can produce every thing that is wanted for home 

 consumption, and much for the foreign market. In Middleton, a farmer raised 

 forty bushels of wheat to the acre. Oats yield from forty to sixty bushels, 

 and I think some tracts have gone as high as eighty bushels. Unfavorable 

 as was the last season some farmers have succeeded better in their corn crops 

 than in any past season. Barley does well, fruit trees grow vigorously, the tame 

 grasses are easily cultivated, and this county is as highly favored for stock raising 

 as any country can be. But owing to the unsettled state of our population, our 

 farmers have not had time and leisure to fix upon that inode of tillage which 

 will yield the greatest profit. Their first object seems to have been to raise that 

 which is soonest convertible into cash, to meet current expenses, and for that 

 purpose have relied on wheat The causes of our failure to raise this staple must 

 be investigated, but at present we have not time to examine it. My aim is to 

 exonerate the soil from censure, because the culture of it may have been unpi-o- 

 fitable — our lands are too fertile and too cheap to be well cultivated. The waste- 

 ful improvidence and bad husbandry of the farmer stands out in bold relief all 

 round the farm, iu the place of good ploughing, good seed, and good fences — 

 good ploughs and good ploughing constitute the great secret of good crops ; but 

 this most important part of successful tillage is passed over to incompetent hands. 

 Agricultural labor 4i far less remunerative than it should be, and less than me- 

 chanical labor from the want of that division of labor which is so successfully 

 applied in other arts. These embarrassments, peculiar to the first settlement of 

 a country, will be relieved by time and experience. It is enough now for us to 

 know that our soil contains all the elements of wealth; and it remains to science, 

 industry, and economy, to form them into rich sources of affluence and indepen- 

 dence to their possessors. 



That the agricultural class in this county is depressed, and the farmer discour- 

 aged is a fact It may be proper to inquire into the cause — how men, in the^ 

 midst of all the elements of wealth, can be loo poor In pay their dcbt:^ and thou- 



