William Dempster Hoard acquired Prospect Farm in 1899 and used it as a laboratory for testing the practices promoted in his magazine, Hoard's Dairyman. Hoard advocated the use of alfalfa as a dairy feed, maintaining a cow census, and the registration of dairy herds to track milk production. Hoard's magazine also encouraged improvements to the silo and the use of silage as a feed source. He further worked on the eradication of milk-borne tuberculosis.

Hoard was born in Stockbridge, New York in 1836 and migrated to Wisconsin in 1857. After serving in the Civil War, Hoard launched several business ventures, finally settling on newspaper publishing. He began the Jefferson County Union in Lake Mills, Wisconsin in 1870. Three years later, he and the newspaper moved to Fort Atkinson, Wisconsin. In 1885 he founded Hoard's Dairyman. Hoard was elected Governor of Wisconsin in 1888 and fought against the adulteration of food. William Hoard died in 1918. His son, Frank Ward Hoard, who became the business manager of their publishing business in 1890, succeeded him in his work. Frank, with the help of his brothers, Halbert and Arthur, built Hoard's Dairyman into a national dairy farm magazine.

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