158 WISCONSIN AGRICULTUEE. 



The clergy have no trouble in these good times in collecting 

 their salaries, and perhaps larger ones too, than when hedgerow 

 blighted, and sold for two shillings per bushel after drawing it 

 sixty miles to market. Then the farmer felt humble without 

 much exhortation from his pastor, or but little exertion on his 

 own part. They could then serve God and not mammon — for 

 mammon and filthy lucre were too much strangers in those days 

 to be even deified or worshipped. May our clergy continue to 

 watch over their flocks and teach correct principles of virtue 

 and piety, with a zeal becoming their high calling. And may 

 they receive bountifully of the good fruits of the earth and a 

 constant approval of Him whose gospel they preach. 



Among the best and firmest friends of the farmer and mechanic 

 however, are our editors and newspaper publishers. They always 

 speak well of the farmer and mechanic, and give us a great 

 many puffs gratuitously. But aside from this fact, and not to 

 speak of the influence of the past particularly, I hold it to be a 

 duty which is incumbent, in these good times, upon every farmer 

 and mechanic to support the papers of the county in which he 

 is located. If jDroperly conducted, they are the conservators of 

 our interests, and the best friends to our progress, and the pro- 

 gress of our children, in the acquisition of useful knowledge. 

 They bring home to our door weekly information of what is 

 going on in the great world around us, and keep us posted, 

 in the market prices of the products of our farms, and the im- 

 provements which are constantly being made in mechanical 

 science. 



But of those papers which are devoted exclusively to the ad- 

 vancement of agricultural science, I would simply say that those 

 of the farming community who do not patronize them, are sadly 

 derelict in their duty, and are their own worst enemy. In this 

 connection I take it upon myself to call attention particularly to 

 Maek Miller's Wisconsin Farmer. For the paltry sum of 

 fifty cents, a large amount of useful knowledge can be gleaned 

 from this work — an amount far outweighing the price to be paid 

 for it ; and besides, every farmer who takes it, and others of a 

 similar character, will have the consciousness of maintaining and 



