£*18 
THK KUKAL NEW-YORKER 
February 15, 
Hope Farm Notes 
“THE BADGER STATE.” 
No. I. 
Wisconsin. —During the latter part of 
January I spent a couple of days at the 
Wisconsin College of Agriculture. It would 
hardly be fair to watch a man walking 
across his farm with his overcoat on and 
then go off and try to tell what sort of 
a man he is. Still,* one with good eyes 
could tell something about him. It is much 
the same with trying to judge a country 
from a car window after Jack Frost has 
locked up the soil and put a little snow 
on top. It would be a poor observer, 
however, who did not form some sort of 
opinion. The country through Northern 
Indiana and North Central Illinois never 
did make me think I would like to live 
there. That’s just the way it impresses 
me—though men on the train and in the 
town tell me it is the finest and richest 
soil and country on earth. I do not like 
these fiat prairies stretching off with no 
hills to rest the eye. The cornfields crowd up 
into the back yards of the little towns. 
The corn ears have been broken off and the 
stalks are standing with cattle and hogs 
in to break them down. The towns strike 
me as lazy, somehow, with no Winter work 
to speak of, and but little local pride 
about “fixing up” and making the place 
look neat. When people tell me how rich 
this wonderful soil is and the wealth that 
is taken out of it and the way It has risen 
in value, I wonder where that money goes 
to. A good share of it ought to stay right 
in the locality, put into paint and the 
things that make town and farm life the 
most attractive and best form of living 
on earth. I have no thought that this rich 
corn section is after immigrants or trying 
to offer inducements to settlers. Laud is 
too high for that, and consequently it 
doesn’t make so much difference in a busi¬ 
ness way how those towns are kept up. Yet 
the entire Central West would be stronger 
and better off if those little villages and 
towns could be painted and made neat so 
that they would give expression to the 
pride which farmers have in their rich 
section. One man on the train told me 
this was exactly right—that the best thing 
that was happening to the young people 
was their organizing to do just that thing. 
Another man laughed good-naturedly and 
told me I did not have to look out of the 
window if I didn’t want to—there was no 
law to compel me. He was correct in 
that. 
When we struck Northern Illinois and 
Southern Wisconsin there was a law which 
made me look out—the law of attraction 
which all advertisers strive for. We had 
left the flat country of half utilized corn¬ 
stalks and entered a rolling section. There 
was hardly a shock of corn to be seen left 
out in the fields. For this was a land of 
silos. The Wisconsin Agricultural College 
has eight sets of forms for constructing 
concrete silos. These are rented to farm 
communities. An instructor goes along to 
show how to build the first silo—then the 
forms are sent from farm to farm for use. 
Throughout this section of Wisconsin it 
was hard to see, from the train, a group 
of farm buildings that were not neatly 
painted and with trees and with at least 
a start at a lawn or some ornamental sur¬ 
roundings. It is a home-looking country, 
and I think the first thought of a home 
seeker would be that he would like to live 
there. As was natural, the towns reflected 
something of the neat appearance of these 
farms. The stranger who knew nothing of 
this section save what he could see ac- 
cross these gray, snow-draped fields would 
surely say—here dwell a contented and 
prosperous people who have true pride in 
their business. 
The Cause. —What things are responsi¬ 
ble for this goodly country life? There 
was a conference of country life workers at 
the college, and one would think this would 
be the place to dig down to fundamentals. 
To me the most striking thing about this 
conference was a group of elderly men 
who were teaching us the truth of Brown¬ 
ing’s beautiful poem 
“Grow old along with me 
The best is yet to be.” 
These white-haired men were pioneers 
in the work of making the newer Wisconsin. 
Some of them were sons of men who came 
into the forest, cleared the land, and en¬ 
dured all the struggles of pioneer life 
which were needed to give the material 
things of Wisconsin to civilization. These 
old pioneers won the land; then came the 
newer pioneer to win the men who oc¬ 
cupied the land. I met men -who organized 
the first farmers’ institutes and who helped 
carry the work of the college out to the 
people. There are men yet living who can 
remember when friction matches were more 
than a luxury. Men were obliged to carry 
fire from place to place—a box of embers 
or a live coal at the end of a stick. 
These men that I speak of carried the 
bright coals of-scientific truth and agricul¬ 
tural education out to build little fires 
of thought and study among the people. 
Here they were still active, bright and 
hopeful. Still organizing and working and 
bringing together the forces which are 
surely to make Wisconsin probably the 
greatest farm State in the Nation. These 
men have always been themselves the best 
of farmers and better than that, they have 
had visions and ideals of a farming that 
shall be more than merely working the 
land. These men ought to know why 
Southern Wisconsin smiles upon the 
passer-by. 
Fundamentals.— They tell me that the 
original stock from which the people came 
was what you may call purely bred for the 
performance of home building. There were 
hardy folks from the north of Europe— 
trained as thorough farmers through cen¬ 
turies of inheritance. They were the strong 
and adventurous—the pick of the flock— 
thorough, patient and irderly. Then there 
were the bolder and hardier sons of New 
England and New Y'ork farmers, cramped 
at home, who found the very breath of 
strong life in this new country. What 
foundation stock that was for a human 
crop. And this sound old stock has been 
kept up by an out-cross of what I may 
call mental blood. Sometimes men of 
steady inheritance or prejudice stick to a 
certain line of farming too long—after both 
nature and social development have plainly 
told them that other sections can do better. 
And so for example Southern Wisconsin 
turned in time from grain growing to 
dairying. The change is what I mean by 
that out-cross of mental blood. 
Y'et Wisconsin has her mighty problems 
of race and social change. These come 
faster and faster with each new generation. 
At the hotel in Madison I saw a young 
man with the light hair and strong face 
of the typical Norseman. Without ques¬ 
tion his grandfather wore wooden shoes 
and walked in them through the honorable, 
plodding work of the peasant. Yet here 
was the grandson scolding the waiter about 
the quality of his grape fruit! That spirit 
is sure to appear after three or four genera¬ 
tions, but I saw at the Wisconsin College 
what seems to me the best antidote for it. 
The president of the great Wisconsin Uni¬ 
versity publicly honored Henry D. Gris¬ 
wold, a plain farmer and dairyman, by 
presenting him with an official testimonial. 
Dr. Russell said that Mr. Griswold had 
made 60 acres of Wisconsin land support 
50 head of fine cattle. And this is why 
the University gave this farmer an honor 
equal to that bestowed upon great states¬ 
men or educators or inventors. 
‘‘On his small farm he has not only 
made a com fori able living, hut he is giv¬ 
ing his five children university educations 
That seemed to me the most benutiful— 
the most striking recognition of plain, 
honest farming that I ever heard of. It 
puts that kind of farming just where it 
ought to be, right up on the platform 
beside the highest and best of thought. 
That is the spirit which will serve as an 
antidote to the poison which gets into the 
mind of many a farmer’s boy when he 
begins to think that the honors and ribbons 
never come to the man who works with 
his hands. 
The Cow.— They told me that when you 
got down to practical things the happy 
smile on the face of Southern Wisconsin 
was produced by the contented dairy cow' 
biting off dollars as she chewed her cud. 
There are parts of the State—the grain- 
selling sections—which are not so prosper¬ 
ous, but whete the cow’s hoof digs a dimple 
in the face of nature the earth smiles. 
One leading man told me that the State 
owed much of this prosperity to Prof. W. 
A. Henry. Years ago Prof. Henry talked 
in season and out about the way Wis¬ 
consin was being milked and drained of 
the life blood of her soil. There was a 
steady stream of wheat bran flowing 
away from Wisconsin and Minnesota, 
and carrying with it the plant food 
which would determine the occupation of 
the next generation and thus make history. 
For the Wisconsin boys who ought to lie 
farmers would chase that plant food. \"ou 
can see what I mean. If this plant food 
could be kept at home the soil would be 
kept up and the boy would stay on it. I 
can easily remember how, years' ago. Prof. 
Henry argued and pleaded with the farmers 
to tap. that stream of wheat bran and 
feed it at home. At that time I could 
not fully grasp the meaning of it, but now 
it is easy to see what Buch work has done 
for Wisconsin. For it helped change the 
thought of the people away from grain 
farming to dairying, and without question 
that changed the history of Southern Wis¬ 
consin. 
And from this grew other changes. 
Ex-Gov. Hoard and other far-seeing 
veterans saw that not only the farm but 
the man also might be improved by the 
cow. No man could long remain a scrub in 
thought or methods if he associated with 
a high-grade cow. and it is a fact that 
cow aristocracy has helped somewhat to 
produce a farm nobility. This has come 
to a point which justifies Dr. Russell, dean 
of the college, in saying that “probably no 
movement inaugurated by the station other 
than the Babcock test, lias been so im¬ 
portant in the development of dairying in 
Wisconsin, as the organization throughout 
the State of community centers for the 
breeding of high-grade and pure-bred dairy 
stock.” In one county alone (Waukesha). 
66 breeders own over $500,000 worth of 
Guernsey cattle, and this gets us down 
to the real foundation of the whole thing, 
of dairy prosperity and dairy cattle im¬ 
provement. One man said “Come with me 
to the dairy building anu I will show you 
the germ of it all.” There we found the 
old original “No. 1” Babcock milk-testing 
machine. Lot us have a talk with Dr. 
Babcock next week. h. w. c. 
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