864 
STATE AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY. 
which would give 32 acres each year devoted to the produc¬ 
tion of sugar. 
The cultivation of root crops, which has added sq many 
millions ot dollars annually to the agricultural wealth of Great 
Britain, and enabled that country to support its millions of 
population, is not simply due the actual money value of the 
crop produced, bat to the enhanced value accruing to the land 
by the feeding of cattle, sheep and hogs thereon, thereby in¬ 
creasing the production of the cereals by more than doable 
over former years, and it is humiliating to us, with our deep 
rich virgin soil, that we do not produce of wheat, oats, rye 
and grass one-half that produced per acre by the English cul¬ 
tivator, and the difference is principally owing to the introduc¬ 
tion of root culture in that country, with its attendant necessi¬ 
ty, deep plowing ; and the time is certainly coming when we 
too must adopt some such system to renovate our already par¬ 
tially worn land, and it is to be hoped that we may soon be 
enabled to institute experiments here that will tend to eluci¬ 
date the facts connected with the renovation of our soils by 
drainage. Deep culture, rotation of crops, a knowledge of 
soils and their adaptability to certain crops, and the economi¬ 
cal value of feeding carefully upon our farms the product of 
our soil. This very county of Champaign, which was former¬ 
ly noted for its fine stock, is now dependent upon Texas and 
the Eed river country for the steers she fattens. In order to 
keep up the fertility of our land we must engage more in 
mixed husbandry, and in order that our land may carry its 
full maximum of stock, we must come sooner or later to the 
raising of root crops, unless something shall be discovered 
hereafter which will take their place. I should consider it 
one of the most important and interesting experiments that this 
university could institute, not that I suppose that an experi¬ 
ment in any direction, instituted and carried out by any pub¬ 
lic institution, could be prosecuted as cheaply as by a private 
individual, on account of the fact that the minute record kept, 
and other obstacles attending any public undertaking, tends to 
