Wisconsin State Agricultural Society. 25 
or to prevent the enactment of class laws against their interests? 
Farmers should not be legal food for other organizations to feed 
upon, without preparing to devour in return for self protection. 
They can at least he just to others, and at the same time generous 
to themselves, if they will but combine and work together for their 
interests as other classes do. The more intelligence, the more 
successful and better will the organization be. Agricultural papers 
are doing much to stimulate and build up the industrial interests of 
the state, and they should be encouraged and sustained; but a “face- 
to-face talk ” will do more good in an hour to educate and impress 
upon the mind facts and principles, than all the articles read in a 
paper during the year. Hence, farmers should organize, give their 
experience to each other, read, talk, counsel, advise, become more 
intelligent, and be better prepared to govern and direct the affairs 
of state and nation. 
Fine culture, a thorough pulverization of the soil, allowing all 
the air, sun, light and rain to freely penetrate it, and the fine root¬ 
lets of plants to obtain their proper food, is of the highest im¬ 
portance. 
Farmers as a rule, do not devote labor and time necessary to 
put their soil in such fine condition of culture as will insure the 
best profits. A few days more time given with man and team to a 
pnlverization of the surface soil would pay oftentimes an hundred 
fold. When the rich soils of Wisconsin are placed in the best pos¬ 
sible condition of tillage, and the crop placed properly therein, and 
in season, there is but one enemy standing between the grower and 
an abundant harvest, with an occasional chinch-bug or other pest 
exception. That enemy is weeds, and is an uncompromising and 
formidable foe, ruining the crop and impoverishing the soil, if not ex¬ 
terminated when young. But few farmers seem to comprehend the 
vital importance of eradicating these pests, and particularly of doing 
it at the right time. One man with a team and cultivator will do 
more towards their extermination when they have but just shown 
themselves above the surface of the ground, than three times the 
labor employed a few days later, especially in the highth of the 
growing season. One often hears a farmer say, “my corn will be 
large enough to cultivate next week, or a certain time in the fut¬ 
ure." My theory is, and I have always tried to carry it into 
