422 Wisconsin state agricultural society . 
not live by bread alone. Both soul and body, in city and coun¬ 
try, need fuller and wiser recreation. There should be more of 
the country in the city, and more of the city in the country, and 
more leisure and inclination for rational enjoyment in both. 
The farmer whose composition is such that he can work only 
with his hands, and not also with his head, is a slave to his busi¬ 
ness—in utter and immediate bondage from the beginning to the 
end of his career. Work tyrannizes over him. He is a slave be¬ 
cause of his ignorance—because of his poverty, because of his ig¬ 
noble surroundings, because of his hopelessness. Dwelling in the 
midst of a possible paradise, he makes it by his ignorance and his 
blindness an actual desert. He sees nothing in a tree but firewood, 
nothing in green grass but food for his horse or ox, nothing in a 
stone but an impediment to his plow or hoe, nothing in clouds 
but harbingers of lain or drought for his fields, nothing in birds 
but troublesome enemies which steal his substance. For such far¬ 
mers—and their name is legion—there can be little true and en¬ 
nobling recreation. 
This should not, need not be so. I ask as a remedy a lib¬ 
eral education for farmers—an education both disciplinary and 
technical. There is no wider, nobler field to-day for educated 
faculties than agriculture or horticulture. To know all the cir¬ 
cumstances best adapted to the growth of a grain, a grass, a 
tree or a shrub ; to study and forecast the markets of the world as 
doe3 the successful merchant, so that he may know where to pur¬ 
chase for the least and sell for the highest price, and may know 
what crops will pay him best, to keep his accounts with the accu¬ 
racy and fullness of that same merchant, so that he shall know 
the cost and the profit of every crop he grows, every animal he 
sells, every investment he makes; to have the wisdom and the 
courage to cut off unnecessary expenses ; to know how to plan for 
the future as well as act effectively in the present; to know how 
best to husband and preserve his resources in stock, in machinery 
and in buildings, wisely providing against accidents, so as to pre¬ 
vent most and skillfully remedy the few ; to make the labor of 
his brain limit to the minimum the labor of his hand, by carefully 
planning in his leisure the work of his busy days; to have a taste 
for the beautiful in Nature and in Art, so that he may invest his 
