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THE MINNESOTA STATE FAIR. 



The aunual fair of the Minnesotar State AgTiciiltural Society \ras held 

 at St. Paul on the 17th, 18th, 19th, and 20th of September. An address 

 ■was delivered on the third day of the fair by the Commissioner of Agri- 

 culture, the greater part of Avhich is herewith presented : 



Farmers and CiTiznENS of Minnesota: In passing through your most 

 interesting State, viewing your splendidly built cities and towns and 

 lovely farms, it requires a thoughtful imagination to realize the truth 

 that, as a State, you had no existence five and twenty years ago. It 

 seems as if enchantment had lent its powers of creation, or that all these 

 extensive works had been spoken into existence by a miraculous agency. 

 But things around teach us otherwise, and we recur to the prodigious 

 enterprise of the American people ; and when we look into the philosophy 

 of that, our amazement is subdued by the vastness ef the field in which 

 we live. The minds of men expand or contract with the objects which, 

 surround them. But I came not here to i)hilosophize, but to commune 

 with an agricultural people on a subject vfhich iieculiarily belongs to them. 

 As the curiosities of literature attract the attention of the philosopher, 

 so do those natural curiosities which grow out of the consideration of 

 the mouths and lungs of the earth, the development and growth of 

 plants,,their life and death, their products and their uses, attract the 

 attention of farmers. There is no occupation of life to which the teach- 

 ings of science are so afiplicable as that of agriculture, and no teaching 

 so useless and deceptive when unaccompanied by practical experience. 



You are an agricultural people ; the statistics of your State, so wisely 

 and carefully collected and published, evince the great interest you take 

 in this subject. For more than forty years have I been engaged in con- 

 ducting the operations of a farm, not so much with the view of pe(;uniary 

 profit as for the indulgence of an ardent fondness for the study of the 

 mysteries of the art of farming. I will be indulged, therefore, in the 

 discussion of a subject so familiar to you. 



The first and great leading idea which presents itself with regard to 

 the management of a farm is rotation of crops. Wheat is the gTeat 

 staple commodity of your State; and while the genial natui-e of your- 

 soil, the delightful character of your summers, and the natural instincts 

 of reason forbid the cultivation of this grain alone, I fear you are prone 

 to forget that there are certain and fixed principles, dictated by natural 

 laws, over which you have no control, which must be observed in the 

 course' of farming. It is not worth while to inquire into the mysterious 

 intluence.which the growth of one plant exerts upon the production of 

 that which succeeds it ; it is enough that we do know and to some 

 extent act upon the knowledge that a rotation from one crop to another 

 is essential to the successful growth of any. It is a fact v/'ithin the 

 knowledge of every observing man that the jfverage product per acre 

 of "u^heat everywhere throughout the United States has diminished 

 in quantity, and that the grain itself has degenerated in quality. 

 Acquired knowledge of the science of agriculture, improved skill in the 

 use of that kuowleclge, and greater experience in the application of 

 both — the ingenuity of the mechanic coming to our aid to supply us 

 with such implements as almost supersede the drudgery of labor-^ 

 notwithstanding all these, wheat, the great leading'crop of the country, 

 has fallen off. Why is this, in a period when the same efforts of science 

 and industry in England have increased their crop nearly five bushels 

 to the acre ? It is because, while they not only study to know what 



