446 Wisconsin state agricultural society. 
PRACTICAL SUGGESTIONS. 
BY JOHN H. CARSWELL, LONE ROCK. 
(Before Richland County Agricultural Society, 1878.) 
By the solicitation of your secretary I appear as a minute man, 
to fill the place of a speaker from a distance. It is an old prov¬ 
erb that “distance lends enchantment to the view,” and doubtless 
a speaker from abroad would be better appreciated. It is said 
that “a prophet is not without honor save in his own country.” 
Although I come from among the people here assembled, I hope 
you will not regard my words the less, but that you will regard 
the subject rather than the speaker. 
We assemble here as agriculturists, to review the labors of the 
past season. We have spread our seed over our fields, have 
watched it come forth in strength and beauty, and have garnered 
the ripened sheaves. If sown on fertile soil, if intelligently cul¬ 
tivated and matured, it has brought forth its sixty or hundred 
fold increase. If, through ignorance, it has been sown on stony 
ground, or has been neglected, we have reaped only the rewards 
of the slothful. 
I do not now propose to talk to you of pigs and sheep and 
Durham cattle. These I have talked to you about before. When 
I see the addresses that have preceded me at the State Fair, and 
those already published to the country by Governor Fairchild, by 
the President of the State Agricultural College, by Secretary 
Field and others, I feel that I am treading on fearful ground. 
The field is already occupied by those in highly honored posi¬ 
tions, whose published opinions it would seem dangerous for us 
to attempt to controvert. 
We will pass by the subject of preparation for winter—how you 
expect to care for your stock, cattle, and above all, for yourselves 
and families. During the past year no unusual calamity has vis¬ 
ited us; no fierce tornado, no devastating pestilence has spread ter¬ 
ror among our citizens or bowed their heads in sorrow. We have 
