328 
Wisconsin State Agricultural Society. 
A PRACTICAL APPLICATION OF SOME OF THE LES¬ 
SONS OF THE YEAR. 
BY' C. E. WARNER, WINDSOR. 
At the meeting last year, as those of you who were present will 
perhaps remember, an intelligent, healthy-looking, middle-a^ed 
man arose and said, in substance, that he had attended several agri- 
culturaLconventions at Madison, hoping to gain some useful knowl¬ 
edge that would be of practical help in his own. case, but that he 
felt that nearly all the talk and papers were for successful men who 
did not need help. He stated that twenty years ago he bought 
fort} r acres of land in a fertile part of Wisconsin, and mortgaged the 
same for one hundred dollars. From that time he had worked faith¬ 
fully, with no expensive or intemperate habits, and yet had not 
been able to reduce the mortgage; but, on the other hand, interest 
had accumulated until it was now about to take his little farm, and 
leave him nothing to show for his twenty years’ hard labor; and 
he felt that he represented a large class of men engaged in agricul¬ 
ture who were not usually represented in these conventions. No 
answer was made to his appeal, as, indeed, no special answer could 
be made, without knowing more of his peculiarities as a farmer and 
financier. But his talk left a strong impression on my mind, and 
you will excuse me if I devote the short time assigned me to a 
few suggestions to that large class of farmers who are poor and, 
perhaps, unsuccessful. I do not expect to reach one-half of that 
class of lazy, do-nothing farmers, who infest every tavern, and who 
are already stranded on the shores of loaferdom, but it is in the hope 
that it may help some of those earnest workers who are struggling 
on the up-grade against odds, that this paper is presented. 
The last year has been a peculiar one for Wisconsin farmers. Fol¬ 
lowing a year in which the chintz-bugs nearly ruined the wheat- 
crop in many parts ol the State, many farmers sowed less wheat 
and planted largel}- with corn. In August, frost, almost if not 
