WINTER MEETING, 1SS0. 5 



cession. With a little forethought find calculation, the permanent improve- 

 ments needed can be made at intervals of time without interfering with the 

 regular routine of business. 



From year to year the pursuit of agriculture is gaining respectability. The 

 cultivation of the soil is no longer looked upon as a low and degrading busi- 

 ness, but is taking rank among the noblest professions of the age. The appear- 

 ance of our buildings with their surroundings; our orchards and woodlands; 

 our beautiful fields and well-bred stock, should always be evidence of our hav- 

 ing lived in an age of improvement. 



There are many other things that enhance the value of farm property, a few of 

 which are good roads, postal routes, markets, railroads, manufacturing estab- 

 lishments, schoolhouses with well conducted schools, churches and religious 

 privileges, neighborhoods made up of steady peaceable, industrious inhabitants, 

 interested in carrying forward the respective industries of the country. These 

 things should be encouraged and maintained in connection with temperance 

 and frugality, and the farmers as well as men of other professions will be 

 rewarded accordingly. 



President Smith of the county agricultural society took issue with the essay- 

 ist upon the question of timber enhancing the value of a farm. As a matter 

 of beauty in connection with the farm, the timber lot is all right ; as affecting 

 the climate, we know very little ; but as a matter of economy in our part of 

 the State, the crop which can be grown upon the timber lot from year to year 

 will purchase the fuel and timber required and yield a handsome profit beside. 

 There is a good deal of sentiment in this wood-lot business, — more sentiment 

 than money. 



Mr. Hewett. — The profit of a wood-lot is not alone in the timber, wood, and 

 lumber which it will annually furnish, but in the protection which it furnishes 

 the country. If all should follow Mr. Smith's advice, we would have cyclones 

 in the place of our pleasant breezes, and tornadoes as a substitute for our 

 timely rains. 



Question. — Do you think railroads wholly a benefit? 



Hr. Hewett. — There is a limit, to be sure, beyond which, if the building of 

 railroads should reach, they would be no longer a benefit; but railroads cer- 

 tainly have a large share in the work of enhancing the value of our farms. 



C. R. Coryell, Jonesville. — I do not think we need save timber lots to aid us 

 in fencing when so simple and tasty a fence can be made of barbed wire. 

 But, on the other hand, trees along the line of fences make good posts to 

 which the wire can be attached, and act as shelter belts as well. 



J. Austin Scott, Ann Arbor. — I have been a fruit grower and estimate very 

 highly the advantages accruing from having a good orchard interest connected 

 with each farm, and can fully endorse the sentiment of the paper in this 

 regard. But I do believe if the farmers of Michigan should act upon the sug- 

 gestion of there being more money in the crops that could be grown on the 

 timber lots than there is in the timber, our fruit interests would be greatly 

 jeopardized. 



J. Webster Childs, Ypsilanti. — I shall cast my lot with the men who will 

 preserve a goodly amount of timber. As most farmers are situated in the 

 southern part of our State, there is as much money and as much comfort taken 

 out of the forty-acre timber lot as out of the adjoining forty acres of cleared 

 land, provided there is proper management. Then if you take into considera- 

 tion the fact that without the timber you cannot have the birds, and without 



