1 7 6 WISCONSIN STATE AGRICULTURAL SOCEITT . 
result is that the poor, who cannot be corporators, grow poorer 
and the rich, who can, grow richer. 
YI. AS TO THE AGRICULTURAL CLASS, OR CAPITAL AND LABOR 
COMBINED, 
In one interest, we find our republican-democracy less propi¬ 
tious than might be desired in these latter years. DeToqueville 
believed that agriculture improved more slowly among democratic 
nations, because, though more certain in its ultimate results than 
other pursuits, it is less rapid ; and consequently the man of many 
wants and small means will seek some hazardous calling where 
the remuneration is greater. Admitting the loss of this class of 
men, it may be doubted whether it is an injury to the calling. 
“ This hard work,” says Emerson, “will always be done by one 
kind of men ; not by scheming speculators, nor soldiers, nor pro¬ 
fessors, nor readers of Tennyson ; but by men of endurance— 
deep chested, long-winded, tough, slow, sure and timely. The 
class of men who farm from choice will be those who love coun¬ 
try life, personal freedom, cattle and trees; and these will im- 
« 
prove agriculture quite as rapidly as they who haste to be rich. 
But certainly our republic favors the farmer in this: it endeavors 
to secure a homestead to every family and prevent tenant life, 
which, in a sense, puts one man in the power of another. 
But the farmers of this country, comprising about one-half of 
its population—from 12 per cent, in Massachusetts to 81 per cent, 
in Mississippi—holding a diminishing yet large part of the wealth 
of the country, at once the great producers and consumers of the 
country, engaged in an industry, whose gains are slow and small, 
and demand continued attention, isolated upon their farms, have 
from their isolation, their lack of any common purpose, or efficient 
organization, been made the prey of intentional and unintentional 
spoliation on the part of other industries and occupations, and 
even on the part of their own representatives. Here is a general 
statement of the case by General Francis A. Walker, Superintend¬ 
ent of the Census, whom we may regard as an unprejudiced wit¬ 
ness. “ When it is considered that the staple export products of 
northern agriculture are little, if at all, higher even on the sea¬ 
board, than before the war, while the articles which the agricul- 
