State Convention—Grass is King. 
409 
ered the land with marl. Peat was also used on clayey soils. There 
was a good deal of under-draining done, which was counted first as 
an advantage, and afterwards abandoned. There are no large farms 
there. Farming was carried on with such plants as I have men¬ 
tioned. The first factories that were established were failures, but 
there were prophets that said it must be done and can be done, and 
finally it was successful. 
Mr. Obledge: I was not here when the gentleman's paper was 
read, but I heard one good idea advanced. I think the gentleman 
struck a good point when he said our universities were not giving 
us fair returns for the money they cost us. I think it is true. I 
don’t think they have done us any 7 good at all. I don’t think they 
are going to do us any good until they are radically changed. With 
regard to the east improving so fast, we must consider that we are 
growing more than we can consume, and we have to get an outlet 
for it. If we send away a bushel of wheat, we send away a part of 
our land, and the east is draining everything from us. All of the 
land, and all of the money, mostly everything is going east; but 
we cannot help ourselves that I know of. It is one of those things 
that comes from the natural circumstances of the case. People 
talk about England’s making money; the whole world is shoving 
its produce into England, and making them richer and wealthier. 
I don’t know how you are going to help it, except by an increase 
of population. Our farmers here are farming as becomes them in 
the situation they 7 are in. The question is, whether scientific farm¬ 
ing is any good to us. We want but little science in farming. We 
have the soil, and we want the labor to put to it. When we get as 
thickly populated as England, then we will need science to help us 
to produce from one acre of land three or four times as much as it 
does now. We have more land to the acre out here than in any 
other part of the world. Most any man that goes into farming 
knows very well the farmers of the west never have made a penny 7 
out of labor, except to just pay their way, and a good many of’ 
them haven’t done that. Although there are many rich men among 
us, their property is the product of the increase in the population, 
rather than any' good judgment in farming. In Kenosha, one of 
the most valuable counties in the State—I think it is the richest r 
comparatively speaking, taking the whole body of farmers—in Ke¬ 
nosha county, to-day, they are not worth one penny more than 
