144 
Wisconsin State Agricultural Society. 
State of Wisconsin, in which there was not a particle of smut, 
simply by eradicating it from the seed-wheat. 
Here is a law that has been proven until it becomes a fixed fact. 
The trouble with us as a class has been, particularly many of those 
who have not been long in this field, that they want to take a few 
imperfect data, and go to theorising. Now, leave your tlieoiy at 
home; bring us your facts. Let us collate and compare, and we 
are not going to deduce from those a scientific solution of all the 
problems and laws that govern agriculture in all its particulars, 
this year or next, but we are going to make progress; we shall de¬ 
velop and shall ascertain laws that are almost immutable, while 
others are, at least in the limited manner in which we understand 
them, nearly successful. I will instance to you the success that 
has been made in fighting the Colorado potato-bug for the last few 
years. The scientist might tell you that paris-green was a poison; 
but it remained for the agriculturalist to demonstrate that this was 
nearly a specific for this terrible scourge. The scientist has told 
you, and told you upon this floor, that mineral manures would sup¬ 
ply all that was necessary for growing a crop, and the only ques¬ 
tion was, as to their experience in the cost of the two different ma¬ 
nures; but it remained for the Royal Agricultural Society, of Eng¬ 
land, to demonstrate that this theory was false; that there was a 
large amount of waste by drainage, and the Royal Agricultural 
Society, of England, have proven that the loss by drainage by the 
application of manures, in the form of mineral salts, is more than 
double that from barn-yard manure; hence, in solving that problem 
lem, it would not only be necessary to reckon the present cost of 
each, but the loss of each by waste and drainage; so you see that 
with all the aid we can draw from science it is yet wanting, 
without the practical agriculturalist will devote his time and expe¬ 
rience, and compare and examine it as applied to agriculture, so 
that the basis of simply comparing the cost of mineral salts with 
barn-yard manure in their first cost is not the solving of the problem, 
but there must be taken into the solution of the problem the extra 
waste that occurs by the necessary drainage. The salts being more 
easily soluble by rain, are washed in the drainage-water. When I 
speak of drainage-water, I speak of lands that are drained every, 
thirty feet by under-drains. The drainage-water has been analyzed 
and these facts found to be true. The loss is more than double by 
