1G 
WISCONSIN STATE AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY. 
the most that can be economically made out of a few acres, is 
ever looking with covetous eye upon all neighboring lands. 
The ambition of the continental farmer is to get the laigest 
possible returns from the smallest amount of land. And this 
is a sensible ambition ; for as the land represents his capital, 
and is often obtained at great sacrifice of himself and family, 
it is to him desirable that he should realize as largely as possi¬ 
ble upon the original investment. Accordingly he spares no 
pains to put his little farm in the best possible condition. If 
drainage be needed, he contrives some way to accomplish it. 
If the subsoil should need to be brought up to the surface, and 
thus made to yield its hidden sources of fertility and wealth, 
he resorts either to subsoil plowing or falls back on the use of 
the primitive spade. Somehow the thing is done. If it be 
apparent that a foreign fertilizer is essential to a full crop, he 
manages to procure it. But there are some things he never 
fails to do, nor thinks of omitting any more than he would 
think of leaving off his daily meals. 
Firstly , he recognizes some such principle as that of rotation 
—that it is not well to occupy a given patch of land with pre¬ 
cisely the same kind of a crop from one generation to another; 
that changes, and particular changes, are necessary as a means 
of keeping the soil in heart and in the best physical condition. 
Secondly , he so far appreciates the law of exhaustion that he 
spares no pains to restore to the soil, by a constant and most 
thorough manuring, the food elements removed from time to 
time in the harvested crop. Nothing that can produce a ker¬ 
nel of wheat or another spear of grass is ignored. Even the 
highways and by-ways are swept for the droppings that may 
chance to be there. 
Thirdly , he fails not to give to the soil the most thorough 
mechanical preparation of which he is capable. 
Fourthly , he is unsparing in his cultivation of the growing 
crop. Even his field crops are hoed as carefully as are his 
garden vegetables. What nutriment there is in the soil is thus 
saved fpr the cherished plant. Nothing is wasted on noxious 
weeds. 
