ANNUAL BEPORT, 
35 
waste of all our towns and cities, where so much food is consumed 
by man and beast, should be utilized, and in some form returned to 
the soil as plant food, as it contains all the elements of plant 
growth. Our large cities would find it to their advantage as a san- 
atary measure, to have their waste, both liquid and solid, gathered 
and manufactured into a concentrated fertilizer and sold to the 
farmer at cost. If laws were enacted compelling every inhabitant 
of a village or city to use absorbents for all this waste, and to have 
it removed often to the farm or fertilizer manufactory, the health 
of our people would be vastly improved, and the fertility of our 
soil greatly increased. Feed your crops as you do your stock, with 
an abundance of natural food, and they will repay you with a rich 
and abundant harvest. This truism will apply with equal force to 
Wisconsin as to New England. 
Is education an inducement for our young men to engage in 
farming? It is claimed by those who have given this subject 
thought and investigation, that the education acquired at our col¬ 
leges and higher seminaries of learning tends to draw the graduates 
of such institutions from the farm, and into the cities and towns; 
thus weakening the rural industries, and strengthening corpora¬ 
tions and co-operative trade and business professions. Ignorance 
is not one of the essential qualifications of success in any avocation, 
and in this age of sharp competition, knowledge, both scientific and 
practical, is quite as important in agriculture as in any other branch 
or field of labor. What are the prospects, however, of getting the 
young man to engage in farming when he graduates from one ot 
these educational institutions? Experience shows us that it is not 
flattering. Even those who graduate from our agricultural colleges 
seldom engage in agriculture as a business or profession. Other 
avocations are educating and training young men for certain special¬ 
ties: law, divinity, medicine, trade and business of various kinds; 
each and all have their schools, where are taught the principles 
which underlie their calling, and where they are specially educated 
for a certain branch of life-work, and they usually enter upon and 
pursue it with success. They are usually the leading minds in their 
business, simply from the knowledge they possess above the aver¬ 
age worker in the same profession. Knowledge of agriculture, ob- 
