258 WISCONSIN STATE AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY. 
As it is, there may be danger that we shall take undue advan¬ 
tage of this circumstance, and saddle upon Providence the entire 
responsibility of partial failure, and so allow ourselves to escape 
that self-condemnation which justice demands should be passed 
upon our ignorance of principles and methods we ought to have 
learned, and our lack of the necessary promptness and thorough¬ 
ness in what we do know to be essential—for it is evident that 
the commonest principles of agriculture, by which I mean those 
that are most simple, which pertain to the most ordinary practical 
affairs, and which find confirmation in every day’s experience— 
are disregarded by the majority of our farmers, who neither pre¬ 
pare their lands, nor sow, nor cultivate, nor harvest, nor preserve 
and market their crops, in accordance with such rules as are now 
universally recognized; and, secondly, it is no less evident that, 
to the extent of our failure to observe, investigate and reason, 
concerning matters which most intimately concern us, and deter¬ 
mine our success in farming and to encourage others who are 
willing to devote themselves to this work, we are culpable for the 
general ignorance which prevails in regard to the possible modifi¬ 
cations of climate, and especially the means of guarding against 
the various causes which deprive men of so large a share of the 
legitimate fruits of their labor. 
The days when the faults of men in all these respects could be 
charged upon Providence with the approval of even the most 
intelligent are passed. It is now the conviction of every thinking 
mind that things never happen in this world, nor often occur 
except as the consequence of general laws which it is the province 
of man to find out, and when discovered, his duty to obey ; in 
other words, that in most cases, an acknowledgement of failure on 
our part is equivalent to a confession of our own faults and 
deficiencies. For this reason, I feel it my duty even at the risk 
of repeating some things I have said heretofore, to urge the im¬ 
portance of a better system of general farm management. First 
of all, it is high time that we learned that hobby riding is not so 
safe in farming as in social and political affairs—where it is 
mainly by taking up one evil and concentrating the attention of 
the country upon it that progress is made. Farming is a complex 
profession, embracing many departments, and requiring that all 
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