WAUPACA COUNTY POST

December 29, 1927

 

AN EARLY FARM INSTITUTE HELD IN WAUPACA CITY

“THE FARMERS ASSEMBLED, PURSUANT TO CALL,

IN CITY OF POTATOES, IN STETSON’S COLD HALL”

 

 

            And in spite of the sub-zero weather those two days in midwinter and notwithstanding the fact that families in those days rode in the big box on bob sleighs, the attendance of men and women and children was gratifying to the conductors, especially to William Anon Henry who had just been engaged by the University of Wisconsin and head a department to be known as the Wisconsin College of Agriculture and later known as Dean Henry.

            Fresh from Cornell University, this latest addition to the Wisconsin university faculty described what a college of agriculture could do for a state like Wisconsin with its natural advantages for dairying, then almost in its infancy.

            That fine looking young man, educated in the then famous college of agriculture at Cornell, New York, sold the College of Agriculture idea to his hearers, some of whom were rural school boys in their teens.

            Prof. Henry and his fellow conductor also preached the advantages of dairying over the one crop farming to be found in some sections of the country.

            Waupaca county had been largely engaged in production of wheat before the completion of the two lines of railways that were laid across the county in 1871 and 2.  From that date for the next few years potato was  proudly referred to by many as raising increased until Waupaca the Potato Capital of the United States.

            That early institute held in “Stetson’s Cold Hall” over what is now Cristy’s store, and before the city had an opera house, or a skating rink or the “new court house”, must have been well received by the people of this community for succeeding institutes were held here almost annually from the early eighties until about 1900.

            We well recall how one of the speakers announced Prof. Henry’s closing speech the second afternoon and urged everybody to remain to the close and promised to read a little rhyme entitled “The Waupaca Institute”, if all would remain.  He then withdrew and scratched off twenty or thirty lines all of which are forgotten except the first couplet,

                        “The farmers assembled pursuant to call

                        In the City of Potatoes, in Stetson’s Cold Hall.”

THE COLLEGE GREW.

            It is interesting to note that the first course in agriculture was for short course students and consisted of 120 lectures, the enrollment being 19 in 1886-7, that the first class for long course students consisted of a single student, that in 1889 there were only five long course students and 45 short term men.  Before that time in 1883, a bill was passed by the legislature to purchase land for an experiment farm and establish a school of pharmacy.  A levy of one-eighth mill on the taxable property of the state was made at that time.

            From that slow start Wisconsin College of Agriculture has builded well.  Prof. Babcock’s discovery of the way to measure the fat content of milk and cream has revolutionized the method of measuring the value of milk throughout the world.  That was one accomplishment of the Wisconsin college of agriculture.  The improvement of seed grains is almost as wonderful as the Babcock milk test.  It is said that more than 6,000 Wisconsin men have completed the two years’ course at Madison.

A NEW JOB

            During the early years of the college of agriculture when attendance was small, the college went out among the people and gave two day sessions of farm institute.  The lessons for nearly fifty years were directed toward increased and more economical production. The college of agriculture and the institute forces now see that a selling organization is as necessary as economical production. The failure of any manufacturer to provide some means of selling his product, would result in loss and perhaps in bankruptcy. Farmers should endeavor to provide a sales organization for at lest one product that of the dairy.  This is the purpose of the meeting at the Court House at Waupaca Jan. 4-5-6.

            We have no hesitation in expressing our belief that the farmers’ meeting in Waupaca next week will be interesting and profitable to all who attend.

            This meeting should be recalled fifty years from now by members of the Waupaca agricultural class who may attend as that first institute is by a boy who lost two days’ attendance at a district school that he might hear the new head of Wisconsin college of Agriculture.

                                                                                                            D.F. BURNHAM