314 WISCONSIN STATE AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY. 
ry, will be plumper, and of a nicer color, thus rendering it not 
only safer in the field, but more merchantable in the bin. 
Stacking. —Farmers having barns will always store their 
grain in them, but as many have them not, stacking becomes a 
necessity, and it [should always be done with skill and care. 
The losses from bad stacking throughout the West every year, 
must, wmre they accurately ascertained, be almost incredible, 
but they might be effectually prevented in all cases with marsh 
hay or oat straw threshed by flail; from the want of this cheap 
and simple precaution, I know farmers who have lost grain 
enough in one year to have paid for thatching their stacks for 
fifty years. In Great Britain, the practice is universally fol¬ 
lowed. 
Marketing. —Whether selling wheat comes under the head 
of General Farm Management, I know not, but it is evident 
that if the produce be not advantageously disposed of, the labor 
spent in producing it will, in a great measure, have been spent 
in vain. There is certainly a time to sell, and a time not to 
sell, though to determine the right time to do either, requires, 
I must confess, almost prophetic sagacity, and is, indeed, the 
hardest problem that could be proposed to the most experi¬ 
enced farmer or merchant in the West, and one which, if a 
person were to trouble his head too much about it, would 
speedily make him a fit subject for a lunatic asylum. In this 
matter the farmer must be guided entirely by his own prudence, 
aided by all the information in his power. 
Corn. —This is emphatically the great crop of the country, 
and forms the very basis of its agricultural wealth. But 1 do 
not think it is cultivated in Wisconsin to the extent it deserves, 
having, in a great measure, been supplanted by its great rival, 
wheat. But every farmer ought to have half as many acres of 
corn as of wheat, for being very different crops, they require 
very different weather for their growth and maturity, hence a 
good crop of either could certainly be had every year, with, 
probably, good crops of both, most seasons. But there is an- 
