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PROFIT AND HONOR IN FARMING. 
PROFIT AND HONOR IN FARMING. 
Fr®m an Address before the Dodge County Agricultural Society, Sept. 16, 1859. 
BY D. S. CURTIS, ESQ. 
In my opinion, the grand central idea , in the pursuit of Agri¬ 
culture, should he—to make the earth produce continually,. 
large crops , without diminishing her capacity—to obtain con¬ 
stantly remunerative products, without impoverishing the soil. 
This is the great cpiestion of the day. 
To effect this, we require improved systems, and improved 
practice ; and what are they—what shall they be ? Certainly, 
as Prof. Carey says, “We must abandon that practice which 
brings destructiveness of soils, with productiveness of crops !” 
To be sure, here, in Wisconsin, the present beautiful crops 
give the cheering evidence that we have not yet reached the 
bitterest dregs of slack culture—of impoverished soils. 
A lack of sufficient care in selecting seed, and in preparing 
it for the field—with constant cropping of wheat on the same 
fields in too long succession—exhausting the soil of ability to 
make a large, sound yield —these together, have produced a de¬ 
teriorated quality and diminished quantity, in many parts of our 
State ; farmers have so severely abstracted the wheat elements 
of their lands, without returning anything like an equivalent, 
until they now begin to fail in some of the essential elements 
to make a crop of wheat. 
Now, the remedy for this is to procure and prepare better 
seed for sowing. 
And to restore, by some practical means, fertility to the soil. 
The first can be done by selecting sound, healthy wheat; 
clean it thoroughly through the mill; wash it two or three 
