382 STATE BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



edge is power," and many centuries before him Solomon said ''Wisdom is 

 strengtli." Tlie time has gone by when a man can get credit for any thing 

 but ignorance and stupidity who sneers at book-farming. AYe do not of course 

 advocate that a man should use books instead of brains^ but we claim that he 

 must use books in order to make the best possible use of his brains, if he has 

 any, and if he has not it may help him some to get through books the benefit 

 of other people's. Knowledge is power to the farmer as well as to other people. 

 It gives him power to increase his income, power to guide his affairs witli discre- 

 tion, power to lead others onward and upward to better and inore successful 

 labor, power to serve his country at the State or national capital, and to guard 

 the interests of the class to which he belongs. 



Much, however, as the comfort and also the usefulness of life depends upon 

 the health and vigor of tlie body, much as the reach of our influence depends 

 upon the culture of the mind, trained and disciplined through the study of the 

 wondrous works of God as seen in the orbs and constellations that shine above, 

 or in the myriad forms of life on earth, in the sea, and in the air, or in the deep 

 caverns beneath, Avhere, amid tlie silence of ages, the earth's history has been 

 written and preserved ; yet to care for the body and train the mind is not the 

 chief mission of the household. Home is the field and youth the opportunity 

 for a still grander work. While you watch tlie seed time and harvest of earth 

 that there may be bread to the eater and seed to the sower, do not neglect to 

 sow and nurture the seed that is to si)ring up into a harvest of everlasting life. 

 While you are burdened with the cares and often weary with the toils necessary 

 to obtain the wherewithal to shelter and feed and clothe those dependent upon you, 

 do not neglect the loves and amenities of the fireside for which the young lives 

 around you hunger and thirst as for the bread and water of life. While you 

 rejoice in the possession of well cultivated fields, comfortable and even elegant 

 dwellings, and all the means of rational enjoyment, do not consider these the 

 chief end of life. It has been well, and alas truly said, " there are men who can 

 live only on beefsteak and money bags, the light of whose soul is smothered 

 under the rubbish of sensuality and covetousness, and who have deified mam- 

 mon upon the throne from which they have discarded the living God. But for 

 us we cannot afford to follow such a delusion. It does not pay well enough 

 when contrasted with the rewards of an unselfish life, a life in which we can 

 appreciate truth and beauty in their outward and visible forms and feel and 

 know the excellences of the unseen through all the types of creation." 



RELATION OF LIVE STOCK TO THE FARM. 



BY C. L. INGERSOLL. 

 [Read at Hillsdale ami Lansing.] 



The great incentive to human improvement in any department of life is profit 

 and comfort. This is especially true of improvement in agriculture, and the 

 question of profit has come in and hindered the advancement when the data 

 upon which that profit was reckoned was incomplete. Many a man has made 

 money on his farm, — speaking after the manner of our farmers, — who has only 



