Mr. Taylor - I know a man who has two boys boarding here at ten cents a meal.

Prof. Henry I am very anxious about this. I have felt that I ought to say something on the subject before you scattered to your homes. If some of you farmers want to imitate Governor Washburn, do the same as he did. Why cannot some of you say, "I will offer this as a premium to the young man who will pass the best examination in his studies for the first year. I will give a premium of five or ten or twenty dollars." Why cannot some you imitate him or Mr. Johnson ?

of

Mr. Robbins Why did not Governor Washburn do that?

Professor Henry I cannot tell you. Governor Washburn is not a farmer. Let some farmer be interested in the farmer's side of the question. It seems to me if we will turn our energies in the right direction we can accomplish a great deal of good, and get at the bottom of the matter. We cannot expect the regents to respect the farmers of the state even, if the farmers will not send their boys to be educated.

If the farmers are bound to turn all their boys into lawyers, as they are doing to day,- fifty young men off from the farm are studying for the law at the State University,- if they are bound to keep up that course, let them do it.

They are providing education for farmers' sons; all we want to do is to turn our attention to the matter, and see if after all the trouble does not lie with us.

C. E. Warner, Windsor - I have occupied but little time in the convention purposely.

I have heard various papers read containing more or less wisdom from farmer lawyers and lawyer farmers, and political farmers and farmer politicians, but I would like to hear a few remarks from practical farmers, and I desire to bring to the attention of the convention one experiment which has been tried in our county during the last two years. We have a large amount of prairie land which has depreciated in value. It has been used for the production of small grains until they cannot be produced with profit. It has been mortgaged and much of it is being sold under mortgages. The question with us heretofore has been, how

shall we reclaim our worn out lands? I think a practical answer has been made to that in the experiment that I refer to, and I desire to make a statement to the convention.

Mr. Campbell, who has been a railroad man and a merchant, and I do not know what else, has finally in his old age got back to his old love and is farming among us. Two years ago he bought a farm of this character of land, worn out land. He last year planted it to corn, had one hundred and fifty acres. Не bought fifteen hundred sheep and fed this corn, and at the end of the year his balance sheet shows he has realized over twenty-five per cent. of his entire investment, as I understand it, and with three years of that kind of work he can not only pay for this farm, but have it in his possession in much better condition. than it was when he took it. That is the kind of farming I like to get up by the side of and know about; and I apprehend that there are many farmers here who know that if our boys understand that they can make some money on the farm and improve the quality of the land and hand it to posterity in better condition than it is now, they will stay there fast enough. I would like to hear from Mr. Campbell in relation to this experiment.

James Campbell, Madison - I did not come here expecting to be called upon to relate my experience by any means. My experience has been very varied. I have followed a good many occupations, though I was brought up as a boy as a farmer. I learned a mechanical trade and worked at that; I farmed some; I have been a lumberman; I have been a merchant, too; have been a produce dealer, and I have been a railroad director and a railroad president; and I have been a farmer more or less the most of the time.

Two years ago I attended these meetings here and I found a great many of my friends as I have seen them now, complaining of the hard times of farmers; the trouble with them was that they could make no money farming. Finally one man came to me and said, I want to sell you my farm, and sell it cheap. I talked with him a little about it. My friends here told me I had fooled away my money. They said, "you could get ten per cent. for your money, and you will never see it again." Well,

says I, I do not think I know enough to loan money, but I believe I do know enough to do some farming. So I bought the farm and paid or agreed to pay for it. It had then a mortgage on it and has got it yet, a ten per cent. mortgage too. I assumed the mortgage and agreed to pay $6,000 for the farm, three hundred and twenty acres. I found a man down in Green county that had bought a farm some time before, and he had managed it in such a way that he could not pay for it, and he had given it up, He had some teams and a pretty good set of tools to work a farm with. I made a bargain with him to go onto my farm and go to work, and whatever was made off of it he should have half. I told him that I would furnish the money to buy what stock was needed, and he should pay interest on that until the stock was sold, and then I would have my pay. He went on there, and he and I talked the matter over and concluded the best thing would be to raise what corn we could and feed sheep. There was about two hundred and thirty acres of plowed land on the place. I said to him, "Put in two hundred acres of that to corn if you think you can attend to it.” Said he, "If I cannot attend to it you must. Let me have a little more money and I will hire somebody to help." He did so; put in two hundred acres to corn and sowed the rest to oats; and he hired two men, one with a team and another to drive his team,he had two teams of his own—and he took one himself, and he worked that corn. He called on me for sixty dollars to pay for the extra help he had in putting in the corn, but from the time the corn was planted until it was ready to husk he had no extra help, except that he kept the man; the team he discharged. He had three men on the place, and when he came to harvest he wanted about seventy-five dollars more to pay for his harvesting besides what he did with his regular men, and he got it. I bought fifteen hundred and forty odd sheep, and brought them home and turned them in that cornfield, and they husked and he husked, and when they got through we turned them into the yard. They ran in the corn and did their own husking until the rest of it was husked, and we fed those sheep on corn until April; then I took them through to New York and sold them. I have cast up

the

expenses on the whole, and I find that it cost something over eight thousand dollars to buy the sheep and carry on the work. I had about eight thousand dollars charged to it, but I sold the sheep and brought home very nearly eleven thousand dollars, and there was some eight hundred dollars left on the place; some sheep that I did not take that had lambs, and then there was corn and hay and so on, oats and feed for next year, amounting to about eight hundred dollars.

Mr. Robbins- Where did you sell your sheep?

Mr. Campbell-In New York. This price that I got for them was net price after taking out expenses from home. The sheep sold in New York for $7.80 a hundred; they netted me $7.37 apiece. I have figured that up, figured the cost of the work. My bargain with him was that he should have half. We divided something over $4,000 between us after paying all the expenses and paying interest on the money that was advanced to him, too. That farm paid about $3,290 for the year 1879.

Last year we increased it, got more land, and planted three hundred acres of corn. He tended that with five teams and five men besides himself. He did not work in the fields last year, but attended to the chores and things of that kind that needed to be done. He kept the men in the cornfield until it was past working. They and the five teams did the work. We raised a very good crop of corn. I have now over three thousand sheep feeding. He told me the other day he thought the corn we raised would last until about the middle of March to feed them. fidently expect as good a result this year as we had last. Mr. Field—I desire to ask you if the sheep are all wethers? Mr. Campbell They are not. Last year I attempted to buy all wethers, but I did not; I found some had lambs when spring came, and this year I bought about half of them all wethers, and the rest I bought flocks right through.

I con

Mr. Field What do you estimate that the fertilizers are worth left upon the ground where your sheep run?

Mr. Campbell There have been no fertilizers put on to the ground for the crop so far, except what the sheep dropped while they ran in the corn. Last fall we drew out a large amount of manure that we will have the use of next year.

Mr. Field - How many weeks did your sheep run in the cornfield?

Mr. Campbell - They ran in the cornfield from the middle of September until about Christmas; about the middle of September we began to gather them in; we did not get them all ín until some time in October.

Mr. Field The land must have been increased in value very materially by their running there?

Mr. Campbell I found the crop was very much better this year than it was last, where they had run. I think the land is growing better all the while.

Now I have a few words to say: I heard an article read today a blow upon railroads, and a good deal of complaint appeared to be going out of their watering stock. For my part I think they are not the only ones that water stock. Nor do I think it wrong in any shape. The fact is, the stock for a corporate company is only the representative of what money is in there, and I do not know that it makes any difference if a dozen of us go into partnership, whether we represent $100 that we put in by one dollar, or by $1,000. We each hold just so much in the stock, and if railroads have got to be brought down to the iron law that they shall receive only a certain amount of percentage on the money they have actually expended, I know no reason why farmers should not be treated the same way. I believe in seeing the world fairly divided, and letting each one take his chance at it. Now my farm, before I bought it, the stock had been watered sixteen times. That is to say, it was bought at a dollar and a quarter an acre in the first place from the United States, and it was sold to me at $20. Therefore I say it is sixteen times watered; and I went to farming it for the first year. I don't know what it will do hereafter; it may do better and may worse, but the first year it paid fifty per cent. on that watered stock. I doubt whether there is a railroad in the state or in the United States that has paid that, and I know no reason why railroads should be called upon or even bankers or money-lenders should be, to limit their incomes to a certain amount, any more than any other men. I am for myself, opposed to any restriction

do