MISCELLANEOUS ADDRESSES. 
229 
by the short sighted system of continued cropping of wheat, 
wheat, wheat, nothing but wheat, that once fruitful valley has 
ceased to be a wheat producing region, leaving the vast mills at 
Bochester to fall back upon the grain fields of the West for sup¬ 
plies. The very same result has occurred, in a lesser degree in 
the older counties of .this State. The production of wheat is be¬ 
coming year by year more and more difficult and precarious, and 
is gradually being abandoned as being no longer profitable ; the 
farmers being unwillingly compelled to turn their attention to 
other products. 
The desire to make money as rapidly as possible, regardless of 
the welfare of future generations, is perhaps the fundamental error 
of our farming population, which it is but j ust to acknowledge they 
only share in common with the great majority of the remainder 
of the community. This mistake,—for it is a mistake, and a very 
grievous one, — leads the average farmer, first to perpetrate the 
farther blunder of attempting to cultivate too much land; and 
secondly, regardless of the inevitable consequences to the land 
cultivated, to raise only that crop which affords the largest imme¬ 
diate return. In this manner, he acts upon the assumption, “After 
me, the delugefor it is perfectly manifest that at no great dis- 
» 
tance of time in the future, there must be an end to this penny¬ 
wise pound-foolish method of cultivation, as there must, of course, 
be a limit to the supply of virgin soil, so that his successors can 
no longer hope to plant new land when the old shall have been 
worn out. 
We shall do well to profit here by the experience of the old 
mother country. In England, the soil has increased in fertility 
ever since the landing of William the Conquerer, down to the 
present day; so that lands which have been under cultivation for 
a thousand years are really more productive than when first turned 
up by the plow; and the annual rent per acre paid by the tenant 
farmers of Great Britain is not unfrequently equal to the fee 
simple title of the best lands of Winnebago county. This arises 
from their wiser system of cultivation, and more particularly from 
their economy of fertilizers, which are carefully saved every¬ 
where in Europe, instead of being permitted to run to waste as 
with us. The amount of valuable compost, annually wasted in 
