PRACTICAL PAPERS —FARM HUSBANDRY. 
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men, I will speak upon two or three things connected with farm¬ 
ing, which I have learned by experience and which may be useful 
to some of you. These agricultural and horticultural meetings 
have become institutions of the country; they are exceedingly 
useful in many ways; they bring us together and thereby make 
us better acquainted than we otherwise would be; cause mutual 
exchange of information and knowledge, so that all are benefited. 
They excite to activity and emulation in contending for premiums, 
not for their value in money only, but the pride and honor of suc¬ 
cess. It is certainly a circumstance worthy of no little congratu¬ 
lation that your exhibitions each year exceed the preceding one. 
This affords the best evidence of the increasing usefulness of the 
Society, and gives promise of a bright future; then see to it, gen¬ 
tlemen, that they do not fail for want of your support. Very few 
of you know the care, trouble and anxiety of the officers of these 
agricultural societies. Come forward then, promptly, and aid 
them with your presence at least; we have beauty of scenery in 
Wisconsin, unsurpassed; productiveness of soil, inferior to none, 
and from what I know of Wisconsin people, they rank high in 
industry, temperance, enterprise and all those things which go to 
improve and bless the community. My friends, in the country I 
•came from, the farmers have not the chance you have ; the land 
is there perpetuated by the laws of descent and primogeniture, 
while the laboring tenant ekes out a scanty subsistence by culti¬ 
vating and improving the land to which he can acquire no title, 
and from which he derives no reward except a bare support. 
With you it is different; here all do or can hold land. 
Yes, every one of you who is temperate and industri¬ 
ous, can own a farm. This easy acquirement of land 
however, has its evils, which you will do well to avoid. The first 
evil in this western country is a disposition to own large farms, 
causing heavy expenditures for fencing, taxes, etc., and much of 
it is unproductive for want of proper tillage. 
Acre to acre, and field to field of new grounds are added each 
year, when the land already broken is but half cultivated, and 
much of it overrun with weeds. What a lamentable sight to see 
a farm producing a crop of fire-weeds, thereby impoverishing the 
«• 
land more than a crop of corn. The next evil is in rushing wheat 
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