170 Wisconsin state agricultural society . 
thinking. All progress achieved in social order, and all improve¬ 
ments in our valuable industries, are the products of thought. 
Every plow, every cultivator, every work of art, shown to us 
to-day, is the result of thinking. What the soul is to the living 
man, thought is to social progress. The merely muscular man is 
but a machine, an embodiment of force, and as such may be 
estimated at so many pounds avoirdupois, and his value to the 
world, as physical force, would be no greater than half a dozen 
tons of anthracite. Give him now the power of thought, and 
he will quicken the mental activities of his age, and send new 
currents of mental life onward through the centuries. 
Thinking is the prerequisit&of skilled labor, and this, in our 
times, is the only successful and profitable labor. 
The following facts 3how how the value of iron is enhanced in 
England by labor: 
Five dollars’ worth, of common iron, converted into ordinary machinery, is 
worth .... -. $20 00 
Five dollars’ worth, into large ornamental work. 225 00 
Five dollars’ worth, into neck chains. 6,930 CO 
Five dollars’ worth, into table knives. 180 00 
Five dollars’ worth, into needles. 355 00 
Five dollars’ worth, into pen knife blades. 3,285 00 
Five dollars’ worth, into polished buttons and buckles. 4,489 00 
Thought gives value to soils as well as to minerals. 
It is by the application of science that the long worn fields of 
Massachusetts are made to produce more wheat per acre, than the 
rich prairies of the west 
It is by systematic and scientific cultivation that thirty-six mil¬ 
lions of people derive the means of subsistence from the limited 
territory of France. 
Every industry is based upon a science, and did the farmer who 
delves in his fields understand the science of the soils and the 
principles of his vocation, as well as the geologist understands the 
principles of his favorite pursuit, the farmer and the scientist 
would work with equal honor. The only means of protecting 
labor is to educate the laborer. Leave the man uncultivated, and 
tariffs and laws discriminating against capital are of no avail. 
Our farmers and mechanics, if they but knew it, have the nation 
