356 
WISCONSIN STATE AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY 
men who have been a large number of years in the same place. 
Not so among the farmers. Instances are rare where the same 
laborer is found the second year in the same place. 
We can thus see that one reason why we have not kept good, 
steady, reliable help, to a certain extent at least, is because we 
have not given them steady employment. 
Another, and perhaps greater, reason is the increased demand 
for skilled laborers in the many new branches of business that 
i have sprung up in later years. 
As our farms are getting older and more worn, we need 
: much more labor instead of less. Many say, how are we to em¬ 
ploy more men, when they take nearly all that we can earn, now 
• our grain crops have failed so much ? I answer by saying, we 
must change our mode of farming as circumstances wall per- 
~ mit, and go more extensively into the raising of stock, and 
turn our attention more particularly to the raising of coarse 
products, such as corn, oats, potatoes or other kinds of roots 
# 
for the feeding of said stock, and produce for market butter, 
- cheese, pork, beef, mutton, wool, or airy thing else that will 
condense these coarser products, thereby saving freight, and 
giving winter as well as summer employment to our hired men. 
Each one of these branches of industry—stock-raising, pro¬ 
ducing butter, cheese, wool, etc., has its turn in paying w T ell, 
and every farmer should be governed by his location and cir- 
- cumstances, as to what one, or how many of them he will un¬ 
dertake. Aside from the advantage of getting better help by 
thus keeping it for a term of years, summer and winter, we 
shall be driven into it sooner or later, or a large portion of our 
capital will be used up in the depreciation of our land. I would 
have the farmer who now employs three men in summer, keep 
two in the winter, or something like that proportion. 
Mr. Farmer says, 11 there is nothing for them to do ; ground 
all froze up, days are short and stormy, men can’t do much 
more than earn their board.” Mr. Laborer says, “I don’t like 
to work in cold and stormy weather, at any rate if I did, I 
should want as much, or more than I had in the summer, and I 
* will go into the village or city and hire my board four or five 
