428 Wisconsin state agricultural society. 
enter into no details, but will simply say that with an average of 
two acres under cultivation, with no home market worth the men¬ 
tion ; with nearly everything sold in Janesville, eight miles dis¬ 
tant, or in Milwaukee, sixty miles away, with good help willing to 
obey orders faithfully, and with orders well considered before¬ 
hand; but with several mistakes annually occurring from my 
want of previous knowledge; under these semi-favorable condi¬ 
tions, I have only once failed to realize above all expenses of cul¬ 
tivation and transportation an annual profit per acre about equal 
to the original cost of the land per acre—$100. In the meantime 
there has been growing upon part of the land a fine orchard of 
seventy-five apple trees, now beginning to bear. I say nothing of 
the grapes, plums, strawberries, raspberries, currants, asparagus 
and the other garden products, which my family enjoyed in profu¬ 
sion, in such excellence as markets never afford, and the money 
value of which would be considerable. I say nothing of the pleas¬ 
ure I personally experienced in watching the growth and changes 
of the several months, from the buds of spring to the sere and yel¬ 
low leaf of autumn. As pleasure sells in this world I would esti¬ 
mate the value of this to average about $10 a day for the season. 
I say, in conclusion, ladies and gentlemen, that this business 
pays, and that there is too little of it. More intelligent use of the 
soil, more permanent and more beautiful homes, less roving about 
to find the better lot we can more easily create , more out door life 
and exercise, more English love of Nature and English health, 
less American love of money and fashion and American frailty 
of body—these are what we need more of. 
I think better things are already coming. The parks that 
adorn our great cities give proof it. Two individuals occur to me 
as giving proof of it—the founder of Shaw’s Garden in St. Louis 
and Woodward of San Francisco. Two cities do these men honor, 
and their names are known over the entire country. They must 
be men worthy of national esteem, and their noble example will, 
I trust, find imitators in many another city. 
Can I more fitly close these hurried sentences than by saying 
that Madison presents peculiarly rare attractions for the suburban 
resident? When wealth and taste shall have fringed her lakes 
with beautiful homes, even as they have lined the banks of the 
