278 Wisconsin state agricultural society . 
mence on the down grade. In a superstitious age, amongst an ig¬ 
norant people, a philosopher once gave out that he could tell 
what every merchant and business man in the city was thinking 
about. When they were going to put him to death for a sorcerer, 
and pressed him to make known his secret, he said every man was 
studying how he could buy cheap and sell dear, which was at once 
decided to be no witchcraft, but good common sense. It does 
seem, sometimes, as though the way some men prosper and grow 
wealthy, through every fluctuation of trade, was compassed by a 
sort of magic, and that luck was more to be desired than learning, 
but when we come to understand the secret of their success, we 
find it to be in the possession of good, shrewd common sense and 
forecast, and that they act upon the suggestion of these qualities. 
Of course, some will blunder into good fortune, but they are just 
as liable to blunder out of it, and like Tittlebat Titmouse, only 
enjoy their ten thousand a year for a brief period. It is the ag¬ 
gregate success that we must look at—the rule and not the excep¬ 
tion—the average and not a single isolated case or two; and 
when we so look, we shall see and be assured, that it is the man 
who knows his business best, who has studied it in all its bearings; 
who knows the first, the intermediate and the ultimate principles 
which govern it, and by which it is in any way affected, that will 
succeed best. There is no chance about such a man’s success. He 
must win—not perhaps, always, and in a limited time, but ulti¬ 
mately and in the main, because he acts upon a finally determi¬ 
nate rule that cannot fail. 
I have thus, in a hurried and imperfect manner, touched upon 
some of the branches of science which may be deemed as pecu¬ 
liarly requisite for the young student-farmer to study and under¬ 
stand, not claiming to have embraced everything that may in 
some incidental and even important particular be of service to 
him in his calling; but these are, in my judgment, the principal 
and most important; and in the acquirement of these, his taste 
and inclination will guide him in making good the deficiencies of 
my selection. There is certainly no danger of his knowing too 
much, and though his tastes may cause him to select the less im¬ 
portant branch, he must profit in some degree in the acquirement 
of that. A little learning is not a dangerous thing to the practi- 
