436 Wisconsin state agricultural society . 
varied branches, I shall hope to stimulate you to better systems 
of culture, and thereby advance the agricultural community to a 
higher plane of usefulness and happiness. 
The importance of agriculture cannot be over-estimated. What¬ 
ever else is done, humanity must eat. Farmers’ work cannot be 
suspended for a single year without the most serious results to so¬ 
ciety. Suppose that any one of the valuable and legitimate 
branches of trade, commerce, manufactures, or the learned profes¬ 
sions (so-called) were suspended for the same length of time, 
would the same marked effect be visible? Certainly not. Strike 
out of existence any one of the other great industries and it would 
have a depressing influence upon agriculture, seriously derange 
business interests, and retard progress and civilization, but the in¬ 
harmonious working of the entire business and industrial system 
by the suspension of one of the numerous aids to agriculture is 
but the pruning of the branches or roots of a tree.—But when you 
strike out agriculture you have leveled a fatal blow at the trunk 
and death ensues. This one fact ought to establish in the mind 
of every thoughtful person, the importance of this great interest, 
agriculture. Another well established fact, which observation 
and experience teaches, is the intimate relations which exist be¬ 
tween a prosperous agricultural people and the advancement of 
what is moral, good and great. 
Statistics informs us that in those years when food is abundant 
and commanding remunerative prices, that crimes are much less 
numerous, and that the educational and moral influences of a peo¬ 
ple are much strengthened and improved. My observation and 
experience teach me that all conditions and classes of society are 
advanced physically, morally and mentally by having at all times 
an abundance of good, nutritions food. Feed a man well and he 
is sweet tempered, kind, charitable, cheerful and happy. Half 
feed him and he soon becomes ill-tempered, sour, crabbed, un¬ 
charitable and generally miserable, and produces gloom and un¬ 
happiness wherever he goes. Purity, charity and other kindred 
virtues are the result of good, generous living, which produce 
health and vigor. These characteristics are, however, no more 
marked and striking in the full development and betterment of 
mankind than is the enormous amount and value of the products 
