248 
WISCONSIN STATE AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY. 
On looking over the reports of large individual crops in dif¬ 
ferent portions of our own country, as published in various 
department reports, in reports of the New York State Agri¬ 
cultural Society, and in several volumes of the American Ay* 
riculturist , I have been very forcibly impressed by the uniform 
conditions of extra mechanical culture, or liberal manuring, or 
both. I had marked a number of these reports for quotation, 
but my limits forbid the use of more than two or three, which 
may serve as samples of a vast multitude that could be pre¬ 
sented, and that have come under my observation. 
In an editorial article in the American Agriculturist for Sept .5 
1868, is the following emphatic testimony: 
“ We know two farmers, in one of the best wheat-growing counties of 
western New York, who have just harvested and sold their wheat. One had 
13 bushels of wheat per acre, that weighed 54 lbs. per bushel; the other 
had 37 bushels, that weighed 6234 16s. P er bushel. The former was glad 
to get $1.80 per bushel for his crop, and the other sold his at the same 
time for $2.60 per bushel. One crop brought $21.16 per acre, the other 
brought $100.50 per acre. The farmer who got one hundred dollars an acre 
for his wheat has no better land naturally than the one who got twenty-two 
dollars an acre. The climate is the same, and there is no other difference 
except in the management. One cultivates thoroughly and manures high¬ 
ly. * * * pQg land is clean and rich, and no matter what the .season is, 
he has almost invariably excellent crops. We have heard him say that he 
believed he could make a good crop of corn if not a drop of rain fell from 
the time it was planted till it was harvested. He would depend on fre¬ 
quent cultivation, keeping the ground mellow and not suffering a weed to 
grow. His land is as rich as when it was first cleared, and he can raise 
just as good wheat. It is not owing to the variety, for the kind he raises is 
the good, old-fashioned Soules, that so often fails of late with ordinary 
treatment.” 
♦ 
Id the number of the same journal for February, 1869, is 
the following item : 
“ J. B.E., of Monticello, Indiana, writes: 'Neighbor Keener had a piece 
of wheat sown on summer-fallowed land, one-lialf of which was plowed 
the second time. The six acres plowed but once yielded but twenty-six 
bushels per acre. The six acres plowed twice yielded tliirtyeight bushels 
per acre. He sold the wheat for $2 per bushel, and thus received $180 for 
about three days work with a man and team.’ ” 
Such illustrative facts, I repeat, might be presented almost 
