Vernon County censor. [volume] (Viroqua, Wis.) 1865-1955, 1907-09-25
VERNON COUNTY CENSOR
OLIVER C. MUNsoN, Editor and Proprietor.
WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER Is, 1907.
STAYE AND COUNTY FAIRS.

The numerous fairs held during the
past two weeks cannot fail of marked
effect on the rural population. The
tendency to consolidate. as in Water
town and Chippewa Falls, where an in
ter-county fair was held, makes for ex-
cellence both in exhibits and trotting
events and, in combination with the
state fair, to draw picked exh hts, and
the several county gathering to bring
the competitive and cooperative idea
home to the farmers all over the state,
real help and stimulus has been pro-
vided for those who travel least and
are most liable to get into groove and
stay there. The getting together is.
in itself, worth great deal; to com
pare notes, relate experiences. and
view the triamphs of everybody's agri-
cultural year is to get firm hold of the
community idea, and man makes
better farmer and better citizen by
reason of it. No better means has been
devised than state and county fairs for
promoting competition and spreading
the leaven of progressive farming.
Noting the number of farmers who
in an enlightened community are con-
tent to plod on in the ways of their
fathers, with seant study of soils, little
KIM Wedge of scientific drainage and
fertilization, and no attempt at grading
up stock, one marvels at their indiffer-
ence to the greater opportunities of
farming. Aided by our fertile soil and
favorable climate, even such as these
manage to get comfortable living and
put something aside. But the prizes
in farming are not for non-progressives
They fall to the men who " ork their
minds as vigorously as they till the
soil, who have an appetite for expert
ment and the ambition to excel who
aim to make their stock and their pro-
duce as good as the best. They are
improving their holdings year by year,
replacing a good animal with better,
aye, sticking in tree" when time and
chance offer. Such farmers read and
put in practice what they learn from
books; they study market reports,
branch out on new lines, know their in
ccme and outgo. In intensive farming,
as it is known, the farmer takes one
profit to himself by converting the raw
into the secondary produce, as grass
and grain into cattle, horses and swine,
at the same time taking advantage of
modern methods in fodder and silo.
The progressive farmer will take hint
from the truck gardener and add some
of the more profitable by-products, as
cabbages or onions, to his crops. 1t is
just these excursions into untried paths
that lend variety and add interest to
farming as a vocation. and they are
fostered on new ideas gained at state
and county fairs. Farm life is some
times called monotonous. There is no
reason on earth why it should be. Ma
lures book is always open; the laws of
life for plant and animal are only wait
ing to be put into concrete terms: so
wide is the field that one year need new
er repeat another, save in the use of
knowledge gained from some signal
success.
OF commanding interest in grazing
state like Wisconsin was the state fair
stock exhibit, demonstration to the
most skel teal that it pays in dollars
and cents to have good stock ON the
dairy farm, and that it costs no more
to raise colt of price than some plod-
ding farm animal. Senator Stephen-
sons Gertrude Wayne with her eight
dollars worth of butter a week. Yeksa
Sunbeam with her famous milk and
butter record, with blooded animals
from many model farms demonstrate.
if their record means anything. that it
is rank extravaganza to be pasturing
Indifferent cattle when Holsteins and
Jerseys can be cared for at the same
outlay. To be sure, premium cows cost
money, but calf of the same strain
costs much less, and there is no direc-
tion in which cooperation between
neighbors can be applied to better ad-
vantage than in grading up herds.
Blood tells, and the irst cost Of pedi-
gree is nothing compared to the ulti-
MAZE gain.
What the average farmer most needs
is to know what is going on in the