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Wisconsin State Agricultural Society. 
neighborhood who know more about book-farming than I do. Mr. 
Robbins says he is going to sow his plaster with his clover seed, 
and then it is going to catch; he may find out ,he is mistaken. A 
man may get up before a meeting of this kind and tell what he 
has done; he may have been successful on his farm in certain local¬ 
ities, with certain seed, and another man may hy it in another 
part of the State, and it would be a total failure; that has been my 
observation. I failed at farming, this last year, and it was the 
worst failure I have had for thirty years, and I havn’t cropped my 
land for thirty years in succession either. I intend to rotate my 
crops as well as I can. My failure was on account of my farm be¬ 
ing too rich to raise crops of small grain; it lodged down, and it 
cost me to harvest it more than it was worth. Had a heavy 
growth of corn, and the frost spoiled it pretty much all. The farm- 
crops were pretty much all a failure. My grass was first-rate. I 
made a larger amount of butter and cheese than 1 had for a num¬ 
ber of years. I cut up my corn, and it has been better fodder than 
if it had dried up after the frost. 
Mr. Hiram Smith, of Sheboygan Falls: The two last speakers, 
Mr. Hazen and Mr. Robbins, seem to insinuate that going to grass 
is a sort of epithet. I think if we will consider that going to grass 
is almost synonymous with going to glory, it wouldn’t be so consid¬ 
ered. I am happy to say that I went to grass some fifteen years 
ago, and I find no deficiency in that bank-account. My bank of 
soil is just as good for eighty bushels of oats now after my cows 
have run over the grass-land for fifteen years. I never got any 
notice from that soil that I have overdrawn, if I checked for eighty 
bushels of oats to the acre, and I attribute it all to the success of 
going to grass and keeping cows. We may talk about renovating 
the soil, improving the soil; unless we adopt some system of farm¬ 
ing that must make it a necessity we shall fail. If we go into the 
dairy-business, raising cattle, we can not by any possibility escape 
the necessity of renovating the soil. After new beginners go into 
the dairy business their confidence is shaken by the depreciation in 
the prices of dairy-products, but in fact it is far less than any other 
branch of industry. The depreciation in price is very light. A 
pound of cheese buys to-day more sugar in comparison with the 
amount of labor it costs to produce a pound of cheese than formerly. 
The difference is apparent, not real. We can make money in 
