time the plant cells are so full of water and so tender they break off badly.

The principle of cultivation after planting is to save moisture, but the weeds must be destroyed or they will use the plant food and moisture the corn should have and reduce the yield very much. Four stalks of corn, says King, when tasseling and developing ears, used nearly three pounds of water to each stalk daily for 13 days.

How deep shall we cultivate? Some say deep the first time or two and then shallow. The little corn plants will have roots more than twice as long as their height above the land, and the depth the seed was covered is the place the roots will be running parallel with the surface, and here is the limit to the depth for cultivation.

If a root, which is the plant's feeding power, is broken off, that is the end forever. Very truly after a time new ones will develop, but what has the plant lost, for it only has so many days to live, and it is losing time getting ready for a new start.

The tool with large shovels and few of them must dig deep to cut away and replace the dirt, besides tearing away a large part of the root system, and if the land is a little hard it is left so lumpy and open that the winds sweep through and carry away great quantities of moisture, which should be retained to carry food up continually into the stalk to make growth, but of course if the roots are cut away there would be no means of taking moisture anyway. If shovels are used, many small ones are preferable to cut away and replace the dirt when running not more than three inches, but the proper cultivator is the one which can be adjusted to cut one to three inches deep with a leveler or surfacer attachment, following which presses downward by carrying some of the weight of the cultivator upon the disturbed surface and pulverize it as finely as soil can be, and leaves the surface smooth and compact, and a so-called dust mulch made, which does what is desired and disturbs the root system least. Repeated experiments with this method have proven it to produce the most corn.

When to stop cultivation is not dated, only to go through with one horse after the last time, but if several weeks have

passed since this last time, and a very dry time is being realized, unless the cultivation is shallow and the shovel furrows filled and leveled and pressed, and not more than the center twothirds of the row disturbed, no work had better be done. Very often these late cultivations are the making of the crop, but this will depend upon the favorableness of the growing season.

DISCUSSION.

Mr. Jacobs-Isn't it an important point in the cultivation of corn that the cultivation should be started as soon as the ground can be worked?

Mr. Culbertson-That is right, of course. We follow that rule as thoroughly as we can, considering other work. We have sometimes used a socalled weeder, having fine teeth, and your work is done very well when the soil is in the right condition for using that kind of a tool, but we haven't made any practice of that, because, when corn gets that high, we prefer some other system of cultivation.

Question-Have you ever used the weeder when the corn was six or eight inches high?

Mr. Culbertson-No. We have used it on potatoes, but not on corn, because we have been using a cultivator, which did the work better than the weeder did.

Mr. Utter-I have used a weeder on corn 18 inches high without injury to the corn.

Supt. McKerrow-We have used it on corn 16 inches high after cultivating one way, and then crossing with the weeder. We have used two classes of weeders-one of the old Breed's, wooden frame, comparatively heavy, too, but we are now using the light steel weeder. That has more weight and it will take hold of the grass better. The teeth are a little further apart than the Breed's weeder, and it will get into the soil better, but we do all of the cultivating; even if the corn is up to 15 or 16 inches we like to cross it then with the weeder. If your corn is in hills and you cultivate one way, just go the other way with the weeder.

A Member-How about drilled corn? Supt. McKerrow-Yes, do it with drilled corn.

The Member-I did that one year and I thought I was doing damage, but the results were satisfactory.

Supt. McKerrow-You do not want to get scared when you are using a drag or a weeder.

Mr. Scott-Always remember Lot's wife and don't look back; look forward all the time.

Mr. Smith-I want to bring that corn up a little higher yet and say until the stalk of the corn gets up so that it will strike the beam of your weeder, sometimes it will be nearly three feet.

Mr. Utter-You must use caution and go through your corn in the heat of the day or the afternoon, not in the morning when it is brittle.

Supt. McKerrow-Yes, that applies to the weeder and the drag.

Mr. Scott-How deep do you plow for corn?

Mr. Culbertson-Our method is from six to eight inches deep. The corn is on the sod usually, manured, the sod plowed as a rule about six inches. The land, after it is worked up thoroughly, will be deeper, perhaps seven or seven and a half inches.

A Member-What is your soil?

Mr. Culbertson-I do not know what chemists would call it, I call it a soil with a clay subsoil; the upper soil is clay, some sand and some humus mixed through.

Mr. Scott-Is that depth ascertained by actual measurement or by guess?

Mr. Culbertson-Actual measurement. We prefer to plow in the fall, if we

can.

Mr. Jacobs-What kind of a sod is that?

Mr. Culbertson-Considerable of it is June grass, some timothy and a little clover. The land is seeded to hay one season and the next season is pasture and then it is plowed up.

Question-Do you manure this land after it is plowed or before?

Mr. Culbertson-If it is fall plowed, it is manured in the winter and spring. Supt. McKerrow-What is your experience as between the actual results of fall and spring plowing?

Mr. Culbertson-I couldn't tell you. It has been found by testing that the soil contains the most moisture the following season after fall plowing and grows the best crops generally with us.

Mr. Scott-Is this manure plowed un

der six or eight inches as available as it would be if it were four inches?

Mr. Culbertson-Some will reach a depth of six inches and some will not be down deep, and when the disc harrow does its work, the manure gets through the land pretty thoroughly. I believe that land which has been prepared in this way for a number of years will hold most moisture, but there are lots of things we do not know, especially about manure.

Mr. Scott-There are some things we do know. We know that corn never can be benefited from that manure until it decomposes, and we know that it will decompose more quickly near the surface of the ground, whereas six inches down it may be as sound as it was 10 years ago.

Mr. Culbertson-I admit that some seasons if you plow under a lot of bulky matter at a depth of six inches, it will remain there in that form some time, when there is a lack of rainfall, but ordinarily that manure is rotted, I believe, and ready for a crop like corn or potatoes when they need it in their latest growth. I want to have it mixed through to a considerable depth, because I think the root system develops better. If I had as heavy soil as some of you in central Wisconsin, I would not follow that method, but I provided for that by saying the farmer must study his own soils.

A Member-Did you ever try plowing sod four inches deep?

Mr. Culbertson--No, I have not. The Member-I advise you to try it sometimes.

Mr. Culbertson-In our system of rotation of crops, perhaps we depend on the potatoes as much as any, and I have no faith in the shallow preparation of land for potatoes. This method is not just simply for the crop we are growing this year, but for a series of crops as well.

Mr. Todd-I think if this gentleman will ever experiment practically, he will find the roots going down six inches. In this sandy soil, I do not believe six inches is any too deep, although my friend from Fairchild, Mr. Foster, wants it on top of the ground.

Mr. Scott-If you will go not more than 20 miles to the northeast, you will find very large trees, larger than

were ever grown in Eau Claire, and the roots of those run very close to the surface.

A Member-You can see that all over the country, those pine trees get their vitality out of the air. I think some of them get seven-eighths of their food out of the atmosphere. In some places the rocks won't let them go any farther down; they would have gone farther if they could.

Mr. Scott-I am not referring now to the pine district, I am referring to the hardwood districts, maples, elms and basswoods, where we find surface rooted trees. You often see large plants in your houses with a little pot of earth feeding a great, big growth.

Mr. Culbertson-I think that those trees there are growing on top because they cannot get any deeper. With us the pines root very deeply, you can hardly pull them up with a stump machine. Up in Clark county, you will find all the roots are shallow, too much water there perhaps, or because of the character of the soil.

Mr. Scott-There is a clover plant that went down in just that character of soil, nearly four feet in depth. Some said it went down by the root of a stump, but I doubt if there is a root of that stump that goes that deep.

Supt. McKerrow-No doubt that plant started along by the side of the stump, but it is the nature of that plant to root deeply, and I doubt if the stump root went down anywhere near as far. It all depends on the kind of soil; the soil and crops must come together. Light, sandy soils and all vegetable soils, as a rule, should be compacted in their tillage; and clay soils, as a rule, should be loosened up. Now, the question of the depth of the loosening has come in with several other things. Mr. Scott speaks of keeping the manure near the surface where it is favorably situated as plant food, and that is correct. On the other hand, for some of these deep rooted crops, like the sugar beet, there should be a depth of seed bed sufficient to let the root down. You are all right, and you are all wrong.

I

A Member-I have farmed in Eau Claire county 20 years, I have some sandy soil and I have clay land. find that where I plow six inches or more, I didn't need to plow for two or

three years, because I didn't get anything, no matter how I plowed. For 15 years I farmed in Dane county, and there we could plow clear up to the beam and the deeper we plowed the better it was or as good, but four inches is better than six here.

Mr. Scott-There is much truth in what this gentleman says. I have been in Winnebago county and for a crop of corn I plowed four inches deep in one part of the land, and another part six inches deep, and we had the better crop on the four-inch plowed ground, and yet I have noticed clay brought out from probably 30 feet below the surface that would produce fairly good oats and grass. We had on our old farm there a gravel pit and after removing six feet of gravel, the clay below, with a very little surface soil spread upon it, would produce good oats and grass and corn if we could work it, but you take these sections up in northern Wisconsin we find that where we have pulled a stump, that that clay will only produce clover, or little, spindling corn, as compared with the good growth from surface soils.

Mr. Culbertson-Some of the land I am farming has been farmed for over 50 years. This land has been dug up gradually deeper, and until I get some different information I shall probably continue to plow six or eight inches deep, because I find I can grow better crops with a deep preparation of the land with a good quantity of humus in it. The corn plant roots very deep, three to four feet, possibly because they want the moisture below, so if I can plow six inches deep on old land, not new, on clay, not Eau Claire sand, I think it proper to do so. Of course, a farmer must use his judgment and profit by mistakes.

Supt. McKerrow-Each farmer may test this for himself. Set your plow to plow four inches for one field, five on another, six or eight on another, and then watch your crops. I am inclined to think that with some crops the deeper plowing will be favorable and with other crops the shallow plowing will be favorable, but the soil will determine which will be right, and every man ought to study his own farm, make something of an experiment station of it.

Adjourned to 7:30 p. m.

The history of civilization has been a history of almost unbroken progress. Nearly all progress has come to us through the silent forces of evolution, but whenever evolution has not moved fast enough for enlightened thinkers, seers and prophets, they have forced progress through revolution. The progress of of the civilized world during the past 500 years was not rapid enough for the forerunners of advanced thought and so modern history has been a series of revolutions.

The intellectual revolution of the 15th and 16th centuries lit anew the torch of learning in Europe by opening

up the treasures of Plato, Aristotle, and all Greek thought; it led men from scholastic philosophy to truth. The political revolution of the 17th and 18th centuries overthrew absolute monarchy and established democracy. The industrial revolution of the 18th and 19th centuries, through discovery, invention, and hence machinery, led to a complete change in all industry, business, commerce, and in the modes of life. The revolution of our century is the social. Each revolution has made the other possible by broadening men's minds and making them ready for further progress.

All revolution that has changed the civilized world has been brought about through men. No woman's hand or brain has changed the character of a single age or movement; all revolutions in household affairs have been brought about through men, and in those household industries now left in woman's hands no progress has been made-rearing of children and the feeding of the human race. No one dare deny it when I say that the child of today is weaker than the child of yesterday, weak eyed, poor teeth, feeble digestive powers, prone to disease, has no power of endurance. No one dare deny that the cooking of the past produced healthier men and women than does the cooking of today.

This is not the arraignment of women nor an encomium of men. It is a simple statement of the fact that so long as any industry is learned by intuition and practiced by untrained, unskilled laborers no progress is made; when it becomes a trade, a profession, when skilled labor takes hold of it, it becomes progressive.

We women talk about reforming society when we are society, and the most needed reform is in the home. We talk about the liquor habit, when science has fully proven that unsufficient and ill-chosen food, villainously cooked, is one great cause of man's need for stimulants. We talk about public sanitation, garbage disposal, waste paper boxes, etc., when the sanitation in our own home is vile, because we do not even know what sanitation means, and scarlet fever, diphtheria and tuberculosis are dreaded but expected guests, and cellars are damp and dirty, and sewer gas is always welcome, and the same air is loved because it has remained in the same rooms for so long.

When we realize that all over the country, from Maine to California, in all grades and classes of schools, from the primary, intermediate, high school and country school of our public school system to the leading universities, as Cornell, Columbia, Leland-Stanford, Chicago, Illinois, Minnesota and Wisconsin, new courses have been added to complement and supplement the old system of education, we know that thinking men and women have come to the realization that something has been lacking in our educational system-a something more important, more vital, more essential to our social and economic welfare than Euclid, Ovid, or Horace, and that something relates to the most sacred institution of civilization-The Home.

lacking in the ideals and education of girls when they no longer cared whether they could make good bread, could look after the household when mother was sick or away on a visit, could help with the darning or mending. Something was wrong when the girls play the piano, draw, paint and do fancy work while mother works in the kitchen.

And right here let me say that some of the prominent educators complain bitterly that girls no longer care to marry early, that they wish to become teachers, doctors, lawyers, private secretaries, and earn big salaries, that they wish for political rights, bachelor apartments and to live free like men, that they do not want the responsibility of a family. Educators, like every one else under the sun, reap what they sow. They have planned the educational system of today. Where in all that system of education, until the last few years, did they have one single word that would interest a girl in home-making? Latin, Greek, German, bookkeeping, typewriting, medicine, even music and drawing, but where one thing that relates to the practical duties of housekeeping? In the public schools a girl was ashamed if she had to help at home. Her mother was ashamed to ask her to help. This educational system, planned by men who will bitterly wail that woman has become masculine, this educational system contained nothing that would make her anything else, and as I said, our great college professors and educators have reaped what they have sown.

There is a class of people who be lieve that anything American, customs, manners, laws, political and business methods, is as near perfection as anything can be. There is a class of people who believe that all they know is all that is to be known about a subject, that their opinion is the final word. They move in small circles, they do not come in contact with the world of progress, change and growth, and Chinese-like, they worship ancestral light. They mistake their ignorance for knowledge, and their prejudice for conviction. The whole progress of evolution in education, religion, industry, society-in all life, in fact-is an unknown quantity to them, because in