414 
Wisconsin' State Agricultural Society. 
three per cent., and could not earn more if he invested his capital 
in business and employed others to perform the labor. 
* 
SELF-CULTURE. 
BY *11. C. SKAVLEM, NEWARK. 
That the farmers, as a class, are greatly in need of education is 
apparent to all. We have essays, addresses, and lectures on the 
“ education of farmers,” without number. Professors and teachers 
of our higher institutions of learning generally, tell us how to be¬ 
come “educated farmers.” We must understand chemistry, that 
we may have a knowledge of the soil we cultivate; botany'and 
zoology are indispensible, while geology, mental and moral philos¬ 
ophy, etc., are necessities. In other words, we must have a good 
collegiate education, with a thorough knowledge of the natural 
sciences. This, combined, makes you an “ educated farmer.” And 
in order to make it the more easy, they tell us that mental culture 
and physical labor can not go hand in hand. These ideal farmers 
ma} 7 look well enough on paper, but I do believe that such state¬ 
ments oftener discourage than encourage the average farmer in his 
endeavors to increase his scanty store of useful knowledge. What 
proportion of the real farmers in your neighborhood are what our 
professors would term “educated farmers?” How many of your 
prospective farmers will be thus educated? Do your college-grad¬ 
uates gene rail} 7 return to the farm and there commence farming, 
with no other capital than their college-diploma and soft muscles, 
if not soft brains? 
Gentlemen, those who will take the places of our jiresent gener¬ 
ation of farmers are those who from boyhood stay on the old home¬ 
stead, or who commence farming by their apprenticeship as “hired- 
help,” and tenant-farmers, and who by industry aud economy in 
time accumulate enough, it may be, to purchase the very farms on 
which, j 7 ears before, they commenced their agricultural education as 
the “ hired-man.” This is the general history of the average far¬ 
mer of to-day, and will be the history of those to come. We must 
look at things as they are—deal with facts rather than fancies, if 
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