224 WISCONSIN /STATU AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY. 
of us that we should put our hand to the noble work of educa¬ 
tion, and especially that we should direct that education as a 
course of study which will fit the mind and adapt the energies of 
the body to that expansive, interesting and delightful subject in 
which you are engaged, and to which the world has yet done so little. 
It is for you, then, at all times and under all circumstances, to 
demand that, in the practical workings of society, your interests 
shall be cared for; that while common schools and literary socie¬ 
ties receive the fostering care and bountiful endowments of the 
Government, the farmers’ school demands the like support. 
We would have you, too, constantly to summon yourselves to 
the bar of your own consciences, to contemplate the duty you owe 
to your own children, to compare the life of ignorance, as it 
gropes along in its difficult path, that seems to have no other ob¬ 
ject than that it may breathe and live and die, with the bright¬ 
ened intellect of the intelligent man, who acts under the influence 
of thought, who moves in a sphere of usefulness and thrift, and 
whose steps mark the path he treads through life. 
To the merchant and mechanic, the active and energetic motive 
powers of busy life, we address ourselves and ask you to look 
with favor upon any project which shall have for its object the 
education of the farmer. The busy marts of men are filled with 
the products of his labors; his success and his profit contribute 
largely to the trade and commerce which are the products of your 
enterprise. While the abundant yield of the husbandman en¬ 
riches him, the result is favorably felt in every department of the 
merchant’s counting-house or the mechanic’s shop. As then, you 
move, and make your impress upon the minds of men, let your 
actions be tempered with the idea that all business, whether in the 
merchant’s store, the mechanic’s shop, or the mariner’s ship upon 
the ocean, is dependent for its working elements upon the pro¬ 
ducts of the farm. 
To the professor and the student, to you who already possess 
the lights of reason and enjoy the fruits of knowledge, we will not 
appeal in vain that your influence may be thrown into the scale of 
agricultural progress; that, while you have in your own hands 
the helm of power which gives direction to the elements of gov¬ 
ernment, you will always have in mind that to promote the truth 
