82 
WISCONSIN STATE AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY. 
population of over a million, many of whom, if they can be 
brought together at this season of the year with the results of a 
new twelve months experience fresh before them, will be able to 
contribute something to the common stock of information, we 
hail the State Agricultural Convention as a new and valuable 
educating agency. It is one of the most hopeful tokens of 
agricultural progress, that farmers are beginning to meet in con¬ 
ventions like the present to discuss practical affairs. It is evi¬ 
dence that they are beginning to think about their joint needs 
and to provide for them. What are our joint needs? This begets 
thought and discussion, and in my opinion there can be no 
popular and effective co-operation without such consultation. 
There can be no strength developed to assist in correcting evils 
without healthy co-operation. The good that shall come out of 
these deliberations will depend entirely upon the manner in which 
they are conducted, and the tone and temper which pervade them. 
In view of this, let our discussions at this time be characterized 
by definiteness, directness of speech, and, above all, by scrupulous 
care in the statement of facts. 
The industrial college is now entering as a new factor in deter¬ 
mining the material progress of the world. That it must become 
a very important one, seems plain, when we reflect upon the rapid 
development of the sciences, and their applicability to the practi¬ 
cal acts. Should any allusion to this new agent seem foreign to 
the subject which is more immediately under consideration, I beg 
you to bear in mind that the college of agriculture and mechanical 
arts is the offspring of the agricultural societies of the country ; that it 
must look to them for support and encouragement, while it be¬ 
comes to them and to their members in turn, a fountain head of 
scientific truth. The industrial college is not only the fruit of as¬ 
sociated effort, but is, in and of itself, little more than an associa¬ 
tion of scientific men indirectly aiming at practical industrial re¬ 
sults. Let those who assume this work prosecute it with an eye 
single to the end for which they were ordained to priesthood in 
science, and these colleges will become a powerful agency for good. 
If we attempt to pass from the foregoing instrumentalities for 
agricultural advancement, and consider questions of co-operative 
effort in general, and in the true province of government in regard 
