PROCEEDINGS OF THE NINETEENTH ANNUAL CLOSING FARMERS' INSTITUte HELD AT EAU CLAIRE, WIS., MARCH 7, 8, 9, 1905 The meeting was called to order by Superintendent McKerrow. Mr. Thos. Convey, of Ridgeway, was called, to the Chair. Invocation by Rev. Mr. Hatch of Eau Claire. Judge Blum. ADDRESS OF WELCOME, Judge Geo. L. Blum, Eau Claire, Wis. On this beautiful winter day, a pleasant and agreeable duty has been assigned to me, a duty which I embrace personally with enthusiasm, to extend, in behalf of the farmers of Eau Claire county and the citizens of Eau Claire, to our fellow citizens of Wisconsin, and our neighboring states, a sincere and hearty welcome to our city and an invitation to participate in the proceedings of this Institute. Let me assure all of our visitors that the farmers of Eau Claire county and the citizens of the city of Eau Caire appreciate the honor which is signified in your presence here. I believe that I voice the sentiment of all the people of this county in saying that you are thrice welcome, and may your visit be one of profit and pleasure, and it is our wish that you would carry away with you, when you depart, a kindly remembrance of your visit here, and we hope and trust that you will come again. The objects and purposes of your gathering here and the results which you hope to accomplish, are both worthy and deserving of the highest commendation. As education is the aċknowledged safeguard of our great republic, so it is one of the essential elements in the upbuilding of the state. Therein lies the strength of these United States, and of the individual states and communities, and in it lies the hope of the perpetuity of our government and its institutions. Intelligent application of its principles in the development of agriculture with all its allied interests are as essential to success as educational development in the arts and sciences, and the professions. In all lines of human endeavor. there is a constant yearning for more knowledge, and for greater perfection, which not only results in individual wealth, but contributes to the general good. It has taken centuries of advancing civilization to bring about these conditions. The years have been patiently pushing the door of progress open with strong and unwearied arms. Wisconsin, one of the greatest in our sisterhood of states, has a place in the van-guard of the army of progress and development. Her place as one of the greatest states in the union is secure. Her wealth of undeveloped resources needs but the touch of the wand of intelligent development to attract within her borders a substantial citizenship. We want good farmers, laboring men, mechanics and capitalists. The opportunities in our great state are multiplied as we seek them out. No other state in the union has more water-power than Wisconsin; with the Wisconsin river, the Chippewa, the St. Croix, the Rock, the Fox, the Brules, the Menomonie and their tributaries, and innumerable other streams, it is not too much to say that Wisconsin has almost a million horse-power. She has millions of acres of good agricultural land awaiting the brawn and muscle of the pioneer to convert them into profitable grain, fruit and stock farms. She has immense wealth in her mines, in her manufacturing, industrial and horticultural interests; her present dairy interests and the opportunity for their development are of the greatest importance. The development of the dairy and stock raising interests will place Wisconsin in the front rank. There are over a million cows in Wisconsin and so plentiful has become the harvest that the cheese factory and creamery established out of necessity has contributed $50,000,000 annually to the wealth of Wisconsin. Wisconsin has one of the greatest universities in the world, and as a part thereof a great agricultural college and experiment station, and it has been asserted that one of the reasons her university has a world wide repu-. tation is the fact of Dr. Babcock's invention of the milk test, the advanced position it has taken, and the work it has done for agricultural education. In the year 1866 was the establishment in the university of a Department of Agriculture. Year after year this department has grown in importance and successive legislatures have encouraged its development and usefulness by appropriations for its maintenance and extension, and gradually the fact has been forced upon the people that the interests represented by the farmers are second in importance to none other, and that to stimulate these interests to more comprehensive and intelligent effort will add inestimable wealth to our state. The Farmers' Institute came naturally in this development of the agricultural college, and the efficiency of the Institute is attested by the fact that successive legislatures have provided for their extension until now they have become recognized as one of the most essential departments of our state government as an adjunct to our educational system, and the people of Wisconsin should congratulate themselves upon the fact that in this department there is a corps of educators whose ability and enthusiasm in their field of activity has given us the prominence which should excite the pride of the citizens of this great commonwealth. The work of the Farmers' Institutes is of the greatest importance. It should be taken advantage of by all who have a desire for intelligent and scientific farming. The knowledge gained in the Institute should result in curtailing losses incident to less intelligent effort. It is a school of experience, and experience is the best teacher. By taking advantage of this knowledge and experience developed in the Institute the farmer lightens his burden, and he begins to see a profit. Poor and unintelligent farming increases the burden and leads to the mortgage, which is, as expressed by a Western editor, "a self-supporting institution." Perhaps inviting the criticism that what the editor says lacks in optimistic sentiment, still I take the liberty of quoting him further. The mortgage "calls for just as many dollars when grain is cheap as when grain is dear. It is not drowned out by the heavy rains. It never winter kills. Late springs and early frosts never trouble it. It grows nights, Sundays, rainy days and even holidays. Potato bugs do not disturb it. Moth and rust do not destroy it. It brings a sure crop every year, and sometimes twice a year. It produces cash every time. It does not have to wait for the market to advance. It is not subject to speculations of the bulls and bears on the Board of Trade. It is a load that galls and frets and chafes. It is a wurden that the farmer cannot shake off. It is with him morning, noon and night. It eats with him at the table. It rides upon his shoulders during the day. It consumes his grain crop. It devours his cattle. It selects the finest horses and the fat-` test steers. It lives upon the first fruit of the season. It stalks into the dairy where the busy housewife toils day after day, and month after month, and takes the nicest cheese and the choicest butter. It shares the children's bread and robs them of their clothes. It stoops the toiler's back with its remorseless burden of care. It hardens his hands, benumbs his intellect, prematurely whitens his locks and oftentimes sends him and his aged wife over the hills to the poorhouse. It is the inexorable and exacting task master. Its whip is as merciless and cruel as the lash of the slave driver." Fight your burden with intelligence received through the Farmers' Institute, lift the mortgage, if one owns you, by educating yourself in the Farmers' Institute. Again extending you a hearty and sincere welcome, I wish you Godspeed in your work. RESPONSE TO ADDRESS OF WELCOME. On behalf of the Wisconsin Farmers' Institute force and the farmers of Wisconsin from outside of Eau Claire county, I rise to give a word of response to this eloquent and practical address of welcome. We accept your cordial invitation to make ourselves happy while we are here, and we want to say that if from any cause Eau Claire city and Eau Claire county have any mortgage on us, we will try to pay it before we get through. We have been pleased to note the sentiment that has run through your eloquent address in regard to the matter of agricultural education, a sentiment, I am pleased to say, that seems to be moving the whole civilized world. It has been acknowledged long that the farmer is the mainstay, the mudsill, if you please, of society in all civilized countries. He feeds the world, he clothes the world, and in that sense he makes the happiness of the world, and on this account we thank you for these remarks. Farmers' Institutes under a state or governmental system were first introduced in the state of Wisconsin in 1885. At that time our legislature saw fit to make an annual appropriation of $5,000.00 for the purpose of a state-wide organized system of Farmers' Institutes. This fund was enlarged two years later, after a trial, to $12,000.00, and from that time to this we have been expending annually $12,000.00 in holding an average of about one hundred of these Farmers' Institutes, covering the state as perfectly as it has been possible to do, and publishing from 40,000 to 60,000 copies of the Wisconsin Farmers' Institute Annual Bulletin, which has gone into the homes of the farmers of the state, and they have even gone beyond the state lines. I believe I can safely say that all the English speaking countries of the globe have had these Farmers' Institute Bulletins ; they have sent for them, paid the expense of their transportation to these different countries and have read them, and even Japan has been having the Wisconsin Farmers' Institute Bulletin, and I think that is the principal reason why Japan is winning out in the fight with Russia. This Nineteenth Annual Closing Institute has come, upon your request, to the city of Eau Claire. I have only heard of but one man up here in this section that has been discovered who objected to the Farmers' Institutes, but since I have heard of this gentleman I can see the reason why your citizens were so strenuous in their efforts to secure this Nineteenth Closing Institute. Evidently you did not like to live in such company and want to have this fellow converted. We will do our best in the way of conversion. He may be a little like an old Scotch friend of mine who lives in the town where I do we have several people of that kind down there who, after a little argument one day and a remark from me that I did not believe he was open to conviction, immediately took me to task by saying, "Open to conviction! Sure, I am open to conviction, but I'd like to see the man that can convict me." Your friend and neighbor may be of that character. If he is, we won't promise to raise his mortgage, but we will do our best. Again, Mr. Speaker, thanking you for your cordial welcome, we will try to behave while we are in Eau Claire. |