state Convention—Suggestions. 
3°9 
ened age, and to cultivate the minds and social qualities of our 
children, so that they will be able to take our places and continue 
to perform the farmer’s share in the management of public mat¬ 
ters, in the years to come, when a still further progress and enlight¬ 
enment will have been reached. 
I wish to emphasize particularly this idea—in my judgment it 
is one of the places wherein the general farmer fails largely in 
keeping pace with the growth of the times. An experiment made 
by one of his neighbors or some other farmer, and communicated 
to him orally, no matter by whom, he will accept, and sometimes 
practice on it—but if the same experiment should be reported 
through an agricultural paper, he will have none of it, because it 
is book farming. He will not therefore take and read an agricul¬ 
tural paper, and he and his children fail to receive the light which 
would shine on them if permitted. 
These general statements, are, I belive, correct, and if so, it will 
be largely for the interest of the community, if farmers generally 
would make the change and adopt the improved method as soon 
as it can be done. With most farmers it must be done gradually 
and slowly. First decide on your crop rotations, which can be 
put in practice almost immediately—then determine what kind of 
animals you can grow to the best advantage, making a specialty 
of that kind, but growing some of all, as fast as your circumstan¬ 
ces will admit. 
Some farmers are better calculated for breeding horses, others 
for breeding cattle, others again for breeding sheep, and others 
prefer to grow the hog. Some farms will answer better for one 
kind than for another. Whichever can be bred to the best ad¬ 
vantage and is pleasing to the farmer, should be made the 
specialty, for they will all pay, if properly bred and cared for. 
The generality of farmers are more successful in growing cattle 
and sheep than horses. It seems to require a peculiar fitness for 
a farmer, or an}^ body else, to become a successful horse breeder. 
The genuine horseman seems to possess a knowledge, a faculty or 
gift to manage the horse, which the majority of men do not have. 
President Grant is one of that kind, and if he was a breeder of 
horses would make it a success, but as we are not all President 
Grants, we cannot all breed horses successfully, but we can grow 
