Why do our cattle get sick?

When I was finishing my dissertation, I needed to apply for a teaching job.  I was a student at the University of Maryland but I read some statements of purpose at different state universities.  The purpose statement at many schools said that the university aimed to make students as wise as Socrates or some other philosopher of older times.  The one about the University of Wisconsin said that early settlers had wanted a public university that would figure out why the cattle got sick and crops failed.  The aims expressed were practical and modern and I like that statement.  

Some of my friends who had already graduated had gotten jobs at the main campus of large university systems and I was not impressed by their stories.  I had attended a smallish state-supported school and I felt I understood the difference between research campuses and smaller ones.  When I found that University of Wisconsin - Stevens Point had an opening, I applied.  We moved here after begging moving funds from her parents and my parents both.  That was in 1968 and we have liked it here.