274 WISCONSIN STATE AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY. 
efficiency, as the farmers do; that they follow it simply as arti¬ 
sans, working by established rules, determined by mathematical 
demonstrations and corollaries, even of the existence of which 
they have not the slightest knowledge; they blindly follow the 
rule, not knowing why they follow it. If we are pressed to admit 
this, we claim that it furnishes the reason why there are so many 
blunders and failures in the practice of their arts and trades. It 
is the cause of that platform (not political) falling and' maiming 
the unhappy beings standing upon it, and crushing to jelly the 
not less unfortunate individuals reposing under it. It is why 
that bridge gave way and precipitated hundreds of men and 
women, unsuspecting any danger, into the insatiate waves below; 
the waters to finish the painful and destructive work the falling 
timbers and iron braces had failed to effect. It is why those solid¬ 
looking piles of brick and mortar come crashing down, burying 
alike their builder and the innocent passer-by in an undistinguish- 
able heap of debris, from which the task of extracting them alive 
is hopeless ! And, further, it is why that chimney emits its smoke 
at the wrong end, and it is why the air in this very Capitol is at 
times unwholesome and intolerable, and which, if the dear peo¬ 
ple were to take in too large doses, will prove hurtful and finally 
destructive. 
The strength of materials can be determined with mathematical 
precision, and the weight that any structure will sustain can be 
well established without any destructive experiments with human 
life and well being, by the less expensive demonstrations of phi¬ 
losophy. The chemical and mechanical cohesion of brick and 
mortar rests no less upon the immutable laws of matter. Smoke 
and bad air owe their presence or absence to the invariable force 
of equilibrium. If the architect and the mechanic and the mason 
had understood these first principles, all these destructive and 
painful accidents and hurtful inconveniences might have been 
avoided, and they furnish a reason why even the bod-carrier should 
be raised to the dignity of a professor of his art. 
Will not an understanding of the laws of matter, of the compo¬ 
sition of soils ; of the structure of plants; of the nature and effects 
of stimulating substances and composts; of heat, of moisture and 
electricity, be alike useful and invaluable to the farmer? Shall 
