303 



from tradition, to cure one disease, and even then, does not know that nature, 

 aided perhaps by hope, has done the work for him. 



In Great Britain there is some agricultural science, and this enables Scotch and 

 English farmers to sustain themselves — with "free trade" — in grain; and pay 

 annual rent and taxes equal to the value of an " improved farm" of like size in 

 Northern Illinois. Some will tell you that it is cheap labor, that enables the 

 farmers of Europe to pay the landlords such enormous rents — and all the " poor 

 rates," " church rates," and other legal dues besides. And, of course, cheap labor 

 does its part ; for it can be wielded exactly like our slave labor in the South ; 

 but, at best, it does no more than help to put the worn out, natural soil of Eng- 

 land, on a par with our virgin prairies, if it does so much. 



I have not the figures before me for showing this, as compared with Northern 

 Illinois; but I will give you the first case I turn to, in the Transactions of the 

 New York State Agricultural Society. Here it is : 



Mr. D. D. T. More, purchased a farm near Albany, New York, some six or 

 seven years ago, and received the second premium of the Society for 1850. This 

 farm, of 185 acres, of the worn-out semi-barrens of that region, had been rented 

 at $100 per year, for a long time previous to its purchase by Mr. More; and it 

 did not pay for cultivating, even at that low rent — the whole annual product not 

 exceeding the value of some $400 or $500. 



Well, the present owner — a scientific farmer — has raised the product of 

 one year to $4,852 51; leaving him a clear profit of $2,678 16 per annum, 

 after supporting a family of seven, who added nothing to the result by their hand 

 labor. 



Here, you have a ten-fold increase of the value of the products, and almost 

 twenty-seven times the previous rent paid for this very land ; and all made by 

 the " head work" of one man — for Mr. More is too feeble in health to labor 

 with his own hands. And then, besides laying by this large sum, in one year, 

 Mr. M. has had his own, and family support, in lieu of salary as superintendent. 

 Now, do not say a word about "cheap labor in England, when science can do 

 so much in our own land. 



But I will tell you what you may do, and should do — create an hundred such 

 farmers as Mr. More in Wisconsin every year — and rest assured, that the example 

 of one such man will be worth more to the neighborhood in which he may live, 

 than the cost of educating one hundred. 



You of Wisconsin have taken the first and second steps in agricultural ad- 

 vancement, why not take the third, and most important stride, at once ? and 

 secure, at least, one Agricultural College, and Experimental Farm, in your State. 

 Now, while land is cheap, and your " Seminary Fund" not all given to perpe- 

 tuate aristocratic " caste" in a republican land, and promote the extension of 



