120 
WISCONSIN STATU AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY, 
telligence that is profound enough to be fair minded, not an inch 
of clear water over a foot of mud. Farmers, therefore, further need 
schools, high schools, colleges, a lively interchange of stirring 
truths, an enlarging share in human history. 
Great are the natural advantages of the farmer; independent and 
healthy labor, a varied exercise of his powers, the solid comforts of 
home, the opportunity to gather about that home increasing beauty 
and enlarging social enjoyments. He suffers the grave disadvant¬ 
age that he may be easily overburdened with hard work, and sa 
sink down into the dullness of coarse, ignorant, and poorly requited 
toil. The only safety, the only mastery, is in himself. What the 
farmer is, that farming will be, and the farmer will be what his in¬ 
telligence, activity and honesty make him. 
My fellow citizens, my fellow laborers, you will not win, neither 
God, nor nature, nor man will let you win, without you have in 
yourselves the courage,and patience,and wisdom to win; and then 
you will win magnificently, for man, and nature, and God will help 
you win. 
Secretary Field said he had listened with great interest to the 
address, and agreed with it, that too much intelligence could not be- 
brought to bear upon the business of farming, but he desired Pres¬ 
ident Bascom to explain how the farmers were to keep their sons 
upon their farms after they had been educated at the University. 
When they had attained that point of education and inteUigence 
which best fit them for successful agriculture, and give dignity to- 
the profession, they gave up farming, and sought other professions, 
leaving the farmer without skilled and educated labor. 
President Bascom replied that those students who chose the pro¬ 
fessions had made up their minds to do so before they entered the 
University; that the farmers furnished more students than any oth¬ 
er class, but that their influence was not lost to the farmers when 
they entered other avenues of labor; the tendency was to lift up 
farmers and to exalt their profession. It would be a work of time, 
but farming would be looked upon with more and more favor as its 
results, through the aid of more intelligent methods, were better 
understood and appreciated. 
Mr. Hutchinson thought merchants were supplied from the farm 
as well as the professions, and that the country furnished the cities- 
with brain as well as muscle. 
