146 
WISCONSIN STATE AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY. 
close the avenues of honor and influence and glory to your¬ 
selves or your sons by sending into public stations of life and 
influence and power men of the professions, or a certain aristo¬ 
cratic position without any knowledge of the industries of the 
public, so long your interests will be neglected. I would urge 
upon the farmers of Wisconsin these two points: impress up¬ 
on every public man for whom you vote the necessity of exert¬ 
ing all the influence he can command for improving the water 
communications of our country, for enlarging facilities for a 
cheaper and more economical transportation to the markets, 
and, above all, teach your public men that in congress, in the 
legislature, and in the gubernatorial chairs, we want less gab 
and more work. (Applause.) 
ADDRESS OF GOVERNOR FAIRCHILD. 
Ladies and Gentlemen: —It will be understood that I cannot 
occupy any great amount of time in telling you what I know 
about farming. The speakers of yesterday and to-day have 
told you a great many good things, and I have been very glad 
indeed to hear the speeches, because I believe they will do us 
good. They have told us more of what we ought to know 
about farming than what they know, and that is a subject 
upon which almost every man in the country can talk. It is 
the easiest thing in the world to talk, yet a good many things 
have been said vesterday and to-day, which I believe the peo¬ 
ple will take home .and profit by. 
Now, as strange as it may appear to you, I was once a far¬ 
mer myself, and yet I can tell in three minutes all I know of 
modern farming, and I think I can tell you in two minutes. 
In my times we had no threshing machines, no mowers, reap¬ 
ers, plows, or anything of the kind. I remember that we 
tackled the soil with a big root, and my team was a yoke of 
oxen and a little old mule, making what we called a spike 
team. And when we came to thresh our wheat we had no 
threshing machines, no winnower in the country, and we put it 
on the ground, built a corral around it and turned in all the hor- 
