430 Wisconsin State Agriculturae Society. 
or twice, if need be, in the windrows; put it into good cocks, and 
it is safe. We can draw it in the next day, or as soon as we can 
get at it. In my own case this year, though the weather was un¬ 
usually catching, we were all through haying and harvesting by the 
last week in July, the grain all thrashed and safe in the barn ready 
for market. 
We have a bad climate for a poor farmer who gets behind-hand 
with his work. But we have as good a climate as any to be found 
in the world, if we knew how to take advantage of it. 
I thrash my grain in the field by steam. I find that we can get 
in a field of grain much more expeditiously then if we put it into a 
stack or barn, simply because the man on the wagon can throw the 
grain to the machine easier than he can throw it up on a stack or 
bay. And when we are through we are through; the straw stack 
built, the grain in the barn, and men and horses ready to fight the 
weeds during our splendid August and September weather, when 
even quack grass is not difficult to kill. 
This is what machinery has done for us. And it has done much 
more; but it is not necessary to allude to it. Machinery makes us 
far less dependent on the weather than formerly, and better farming 
also helps us in the same direction. When I first went to Rotham- 
stead, Mr. Lawes asked me about my father’s farm, the character of 
the soil, the rotation and yield per acre. “ It is rather light land,” 
I said, “ but yields good crops, if the season is 7iot too dry.'*' 
“ I suspect,” said Mr. Lawes, “ that your father is not a very 
good farmer. There is nothing which a good farmer dreads so 
much as a w'et season.” 
This was a new idea to me. I have an English foreman, and our 
climate is a sore trouble to him. From May till November, he is 
alw^ays wanting rain. “ The mangles are growing surprisingly,” he 
said, some weeks since, “ but another shower of rain would help 
them.” 
“ Perhaps so,” I replied; “ but as we cannot get rain when we 
want it, let us keep the cultivators going and kill the weeds.” 
For my part, I like our climate. But it makes no sort of dif¬ 
ference whether we like it or not. We cannot change it. What we 
need to do is to study the climate and adapt our crops and our 
methods of cultivation and manuring to it. One thing may be 
safely said, that at least three-fourths of our seasons are very bad 
seasons for bad farmers, but good seasons for good farmers. 
