260 WISCONSIN AGEICULTUEE. 



a policy whicli has been found in Oliio, and other States, to be 

 most disastrous to all such agricultural gatherings, and in the 

 end to be equally so upon the companies themselves, until it has 

 been almost uniformly abandoned ; it being proved to a demon- 

 stration, that the people, ordinarily, do not care enough about 

 exhibiting their articles at fairs, merely as a curiosity, to warrant 

 the payment of any considerable sum for freight. It has also 

 been equally well proved, that companies adopting the liberal 

 policy of carryiug animals and articles free, and people at half 

 price, and carrying it out to the letter^ not only in fact, but in an 

 accommodating spirit, have invariably made the most money. 

 That our late Fair was greatly diminished in numbers in attend- 

 ance, and in interest, on account of the above new regulation, 

 cannot be doubted. It is coniidently hoped and expected, how- 

 ever, by the progressive friends of agriculture, that a more lib- 

 eral policy will be inaugurated for next season — one that will 

 remove all just grounds of complaint, among all parties. 



The Committee would respectfully suggest, whether the time 

 has not arrived when some of the preliminary steps might j)rop- 

 erly be taken for the establishing and endowing of an Agricul- 

 tural School, commensurate with the present and prospective 

 wants of our nobly-developing State. Is it meet that a State 

 whose almost entire interest is, and ever must be, Agriculture, 

 should endow, with almost unlimited funds, schools of polite 

 literature, law and medicine, to the entire exclusion of any pro- 

 vision whatever for instruction in theoretical and practical Ag- 

 riculture? Should not the soil, that supports everything, be in 

 turn supported and saved from deterioration by an early and ef- 

 fectual implanting of sound, scientific information among its 

 numerous occupants and cultivators ? 



It strikes us that the next five years ought to develop such an 

 institution in full operation, with all needful appendages for 

 teaching in the most thorough manner, n;:>t only theoretical, but 

 practical Agriculture, upon scientific and abiding principles. 

 Such an institution in our midst, well established and well man- 

 aged, and turning out its 500 or 1,000 thoroughly-educated young 

 farmers annually, would tell beyond calculation upon the event- 



