S2 Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts, and Letters. 



J^otwithstanding all the genius that has been expended on the 

 sewing machine, hand sewing is still the most popular. The deft 

 hand has still the advantage in the struggle for existence. 



There are machines to sew and peg boots, but the men are few 

 who will not willingly pay more to have the foot measured and a 

 fit made by a journeyman as of old. And the journeyman who 

 can meet this want has good prospect of daily bread — a better 

 prospect than the man who tends a rnachioe. 



Notwithstanding the perfection to which the processes of the 

 reaper have been brought you can find successful farmers who will 

 testify that forty acres of grain are more cheaply secured with the 

 cradle than with the reaper — consideration being had to the 

 amount of money you must put in a reaper, its interest, and the 

 cost of repair. 



The reaper has the advantage on the larger tract. But that 

 larger tract calls for broad generalship, and the tendency of our 

 development must be toward its subdivision. 



The Hon. Ilugh MoCulloch called attention the other day to 

 the Gwynn farm in California. It has thirty-six thousand acres 

 in wheat, which is cultivated and secured, we may say, entirely 

 by machinery. 



But the ability to manage thirty six thousand acres of wheat 

 with whatever help from machinery, will be as rare as the success 

 of Choate and Webster at the bar, or of Beecher in the pulpit. 



Agricultural machinery has altered man's relations to the mar- 

 kets, not essentially to nature. It has made it possible for skillful 

 generals to make large fortunes from farming. But since '• Adam 

 delved and Eve y-span " it has been possible for a man with the 

 rudest implements to make a living from a few acres of ground, 

 and, will be in spite of all machinery, till men "shall hunger no 

 more." 



This is society's answer to the tramp. 



This fact casts light on the inevitable redistribution of popula- 

 tion between city and country — on the rearrangement of industry 

 between manufacture and trade, and agriculture; and on com- 

 parative property values. 



It is true that in this light the prospects for wealth do not 

 glitter. But we are likely for the next twenty years to talk 



