426 
WiSCOmiN STATE AGRICULTUEAL SOCIETY, 
Few fanners, twenty-five or fifty years ago, could have antici¬ 
pated such a result. The truth is, there is scarcely any limit to the 
amount of work to be done on the farm. The more we do, the more 
there is to be done. Work makes work. And as a rule, our profits 
come not from land but from labor. 
When the duties were taken off foreign grain, the English farmers 
thought their occupation was gone. They thought their occupa¬ 
tion was gone. They thought it was impossible for them to com¬ 
pete with the owners of cheap land. They really believed that 
there was land, so rich, that in the language of Douglas Jerrold, 
it “ needed only to be tickled with a hoe to make it laugh with 
a harvest.” Experience has proved their fears groundless. It will 
be so in this country. Many of us who reside in the older settled 
states, think we cannot compete with the cheap, rich lands of the 
west. And no doubt this competition demands our best tlioughts, 
and will tax our skill and energy. We may have to make many and 
frequent changes in our rotations and general management. But 
we need not despair. We shall be able to make a living. There is 
no paradise on earth. “ By the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat 
bread.” There will be found advantages and disadvantages in all 
sections. More depends on the man than on the situation. 
I read a remark a few weeks ago in one of our leading papers, 
that, owing to the enormous amount of land in this country, it 
would be 250 years before there was any real necessity for scien¬ 
tific agriculture. The writer evidently attached some technical 
and definite meaning to the phrase “ scientific agriculture.” The 
truth is, however, that what would be scientific farming in England 
might not be scientific farming in America; what would be scien¬ 
tific farming in New England or New York might not be scientific 
farming in Kansas or California. He is the scientific farmer who 
makes the most of his labor and capital. And there is just as much 
necessity for scientific farming to-day as there will be 250 years 
hence. And true scientific farming will be just as profitable at the 
present time as it ever has been in the past or ever will be in the 
future. 
I greatly mistake the signs of the times if, in the near future, we 
shall not find as many, and*as true scientific farmers in America as 
are to be found anywhere in the world. 
Take up an English agricultural paper, and, no matter what sub- 
