Wisconsin State Agricultural Society. 
187 
the great avidity with which farmers have sought after all descrip¬ 
tions of machinery to facilitate grain-raising, has not only over¬ 
stocked the grain-market, but has aroused the cupidity of manufac¬ 
turers and agents, and they have exacted from one to three hundred 
per cent, profit, thus loading production with an intolerable burden 
that is just being in some measure realized, and has, more than all 
other causes combined, contributed to the rapid growth of the Pat¬ 
rons of Husbandry. So, also, such great production has stimulated 
the construction of machinery, (or railroads and elevators), to move 
it, and these have also laid a monstrous tax on the means of mar¬ 
keting the productions of the soil; and thus it comes about that 
the producer is ground between the upper and the nether mill¬ 
stones of extortion and monopoly. 
Closely allied to this disadvantage in the introduction of rna- 
' chinery in farming, is the distribution of foul seeds in threshing- 
machines, and also in the slovenly course of so many in simply 
running over their lands, exercising no care whatever to clean or 
to keep clean the seed they have sown. We do not expect that the 
increased facilities which the farmer becomes possessed of in the 
purchase of good labor-saving machines will give him more brains, 
or more knowledge of the laws of cause and effect, or more regard 
for the interest of himself and his neighbors; but we do know that 
it multiplies his facilities to distribute mischief and work his own 
ruin, both by scattering pernicious seeds, and educating himself and 
family in the course to pecuniary and moral ruin. If a man drives 
fast, it becomes very important that he drive carefully and in the 
right direction, else the longer he drives the farther he will be from 
safety and success. 
The question under discussion is much involved with others per¬ 
taining to the political economy of agriculture, but there is no ques¬ 
tion that an increase of power involves a like increase of skill in its 
management to obtain the highest results for good, and if there is 
not a right direction of the added power, there is a corresponding 
danger of evil resulting. We come then to the conclusion, that to 
avoid the disadvantages inhering in the use of machinery, the farm¬ 
er must be educated in the principles of mechanics and must be 
thoroughly conversant of and obedient to right methods and laws 
of cultivation as regards his soil and crops, the principles and meth¬ 
ods by which the fertility of his land is maintained and increased, 
