82 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [^ub.Boc. 



in Boston will not tell you there is any overproduction. I 



would like to see the day when the finest creamery butter in 

 the United States will not bring over twenty cents a pound : 

 but I would also like to see my intelligence grow to that 

 extent thai I can produce it for twenty cents a pound and 

 make just as much money as I can now when I sell it for 

 thirty cents a pound. 



Mr. Lynde. Do you have any trouble with the labor 

 question out West? Is it difficult to get labor at a fair price ? 



Governor Hoard. Yes, sir. Mr. Hiram Smith of She- 

 boygan County, who is now dead (Heaven rest his soul !), 

 one of the grandest men we ever had in Wisconsin, kept 

 twenty-five cows on two hundred acres of land. He did not 

 think that he was making profit enough out of the business, 

 and he kept increasing the production, not increasing the 

 primary capital, until he had one hundred cows on the same 

 amount of land. He made a very close calculation, and he 

 found that he was producing his butter, for which he was 

 getting twenty-five cents a pound, at absolutely less cost 

 than his neighbor, who was receiving sixteen cents a pound ; 

 that while he got an additional price on account of the excel- 

 lence of his product he had learned to decrease the cost of 

 production by increasing the capacity of the cow and increas- 

 ing his own understanding how to handle her, until his but- 

 ter was costing him very much less per pound than it was 

 when he had only twenty-five cows. Is there not an oppor- 

 tunity there? With all this overproduction, is there not 

 an opportunity for us to do just as the manufacturer does 

 everywhere, — apply a larger degree of intelligence to this 

 problem of how to produce these farm products at less cost ? 

 And is not the difficulty with us a lack of understanding? 

 I said, when I was asked what was the greatest drawback 

 of the farmer, "ignorance," using the word in a broad 

 sense. Well, it may have sounded harsh. I do not say 

 that the gentlemen before me are ignorant. I would not 

 like to have it said that I am ignorant. God knows that I 

 am, however, tremendously so. But I am confronted every 

 day with this constant prayer in my own mind, — "Oh, 

 Lord, give me more understanding." I met Mr. Hughitt, 

 president of the Northwestern Railway, on the train coming 



