112 



conducted without science and method, any better than a tool can be em- 

 ployed in any trade without being fitted to its use. A clay soil is said to 

 be the best soil for wheat, and yet it may be so compact and adhesive, 

 that unless mixed with leached ashes, lime or sand, or unless the sub- 

 soil is mellowed for the top roots to penetrate, the fibrous or lateral 

 shoots of the plant are in danger of perishing by exposure to the frost 

 uncovered as they will be by the winds, without this preparation ; or 

 unless the proper relative elementary proportions are in the soil it will 

 be unproductive, labor is lost upon it. I will in this place mention an 

 experiment made by a farmer, by sowing oats with wheat. He sowed 

 three different pieces of wheat on ground prepared alike. On the first 

 piece he sowed with the wheat, one bushel of oats per acre, on the second 

 half a bushel, and on the third no oats at all. The same kind and quan- 

 tity of wheat was sown on each. The first piece was good without any 

 chess, the second piece was a middling crop, with a little chess, and the 

 third piece was nearly all chess. 



To remedy the disproportion between the cost of production and the 

 price of the article, we must study to improve its cultivation. Neither 

 grain, nor stock, nor fruit, can be advantageously cultivated without 

 study and observation ; we are not born with any intuitive knowledge ; 

 as well might a farmer attempt to amputate a limb with surgical skill, 

 as to attempt the right management of the soil without education. The 

 manual labor may be done, but the adaptation of means to ends demands 

 as much foresight and quickness of perception, and as much science, 

 though of a different quality, as the projection of a cannon ball at a 

 distant object, or the storming of a fortification ; and though the landed 

 interest pays three-fourths of the taxes, we have no agricultural schools, 

 no model farms, no scientific farmers, supported at the public expense, 

 while military and naval schools are amply endowed. We are an Agri- 

 cultural State. Wisconsin is a commonwealth of farmers, and the State 

 University at Madison presents now a glorious opportunity of connecting; 

 with it, and endowing an agricultural school, and combining practical 

 and scientific farminof. 



When the Erie Canal was projected, the Eastern farmers were fright- 

 fully apprehensive that the immense volume of freight which it was fore- 

 seen would be transported from the West, would reduce the price of 

 their lands. But it has been made and enlarged,' and yet it is not equal 

 to the task ; but railroads have been constructed at an astonishing ex- 



