94 WISCONSIN STATE AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY. 
Q. Will they live in hard water ? 
A. They will. The water in my pond is very hard, and they 
thrive well. Don’t think it makes any difference whether the 
water is soft or hard. 
Mr. Favill was called upon to give his views upon some of the 
topics under discussion. In regard to the co-operative schemes 
which had been urged, he thought the farmer was at work at the 
wrong end of the question. Why quarrel with the markets and the 
middle-men when the trouble is of our own making? The system 
of farming and the way it has been carried on was where the 
fault was to be found. He never knew a strictly grain growing 
community that ever got rich. It was because they were selling 
their farms by the bushel. He never knew a stock and dairying 
community that did not become well-to-do. The dairy business 
was more certain—its products more stable in price than any 
other branch of agricultural industry. About eleven bushels of 
wheat are raised per acre on an average, which sell at $1.25 per 
bushel. There was very little profit in such yield—men would 
grow poor at it. Expenses are too high to make it profitable. 
The Pacific slope can raise wheat far cheaper than we can. What 
then shall we do? Raise beef cattle? But what kind of cattle? 
It costs too much to raise corn to make beef at a profit in com¬ 
petition with Indiana and Illinois. So with horses. So with hogs. 
What shall we do ? His advice was to engage in the dairy busi¬ 
ness. Hot that he would have farmers abandon these other 
branches of industry, but make them in a certain sense subordi¬ 
nate to dairying. He had not lived long enough to see butter and 
cheese sold too low to be profitable. He had sold cheese at five 
cents a pound, and made money. Bat would it do for all farmers 
to engage in that business? He did not think there was danger 
enough in that to warrant any special explanation. He would 
not advocate dairying, exclusively, for every farmer ought to 
raise his own wheat, corn, pork, etc., and convert what surplus 
he may have into a more compact form for transportation. Mr. 
Favill thought the product of the dairy would not be more than 
the market would demand, if generally followed, because when 
overstocked it became lower and the sales increase until the 
market is cleared, when the prices will again rise. He closed by 
