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operations were an after consideration, and the secret of his success 

 consisted in the fact, that ho regarded agricultural knowledge as 

 science to be derived from books as well as from actual experi- 

 ment, and the experience of others. He provided himself with 

 agricultural works of every description, and studied to make him- 

 self familiar with every branch of knowledge pertaining to a 

 successful application of the science of his new profession. What 

 he succeeded in accomplishing others may do. It is not of half 

 the consequence that your farm is possessed of a naturally rich 

 and productive soil, as it is that you know how to cultivate that 

 soil, and make it produce. How many of us have noticed farms 

 with the best of soils completely run down by half cultivation, be- 

 fore they had half paid for their own clearing and fencing; and 

 how often have we seen such farms, on changing owners, brought to 

 in the short space of one or two years? Half or careless cultivation is 

 worse for land than running it without manuring. Skimming land over 

 on the top with shallow plowing, leaving a spot around every stump to 

 grow up to grass, letting the comers of the fences decorate themselves 

 with elders, briar-bushes, popples, and other ill-shaped shrubbery — in 

 short, let a farm grow up to weeds and foul stuff, and you may 

 know that the occupants of such a farm cannot belong to the class of 

 thrifty farmers; he is not only spoihng the reputation of his farm, but 

 is destroying its productiveness, and laying the foundation of a seven 

 years' job to some future owner to bring it under a proper state of 

 cultivation. A crop of weeds does more to reduce the strength of land 

 than a crop of corn or oats, and he who supposes that he can succeed as 

 a thrifty farmer, by half fencing, half plowing, half dragging and half 

 hoeing, will most assuredly, when perhaps it is too late, find himself 

 mistaken. 



Farmers of Shiawassee, we have come together on this occasion for 

 mutual benefit and improvement. Let us stop and ask ouradvea what 

 is really the secret of successful farming. 



Is it hard labor? Look around and see how many labor almoet 

 constantly, night as well as day, and yet fail. Is it a large farm? 

 How many cultivate their hundreds of acres and the more they culti- 

 vate the worse they are ofil It is just as easy to do too much as it is 

 to do too little. Labor, to accomplish the desired object, must be 



