142 THIRTY-FOURTH ANNUAL REPORT OF THE 



the counting-house, of the world. Our manufacturers send great ship- 

 loads of steel rails to Austria, Japan, through the Asiatic countries. A 

 few years ago they underbid London for rails for the underground 

 railroad, underbid Holland for steel bridges for her dominion. The 

 American bicycle, the American typewriter and the American sewing 

 machine entered and took possession of Germany, England and mo- 

 nopolized their markets; but, my friends, while it is true that our manu- 

 facturers stand upon such vantage ground, it is because of the coal 

 and the iron and the steel within our country, and they have what they 

 need in unlimited quantities and can furnish them in unlimited quanti- 

 ties; this is what makes the manufacturies great. But, gentlemen, the 

 real kings are not cotton, steel, iron, but wheat, corn and hay. They 

 are kings; they are the real kings. 



As Mr. Wilson says, the balance of trade against this country of our 

 manufactured exports and imports was 860 millions. We bought more 

 manufactured things than we sold, notwithstanding we had these ex- 

 ports. Our luxurious people in the United States bought 860 million 

 dollars' worth more than they sold; but with your corn, cotton, wheat 

 and agricultural products, you sold four billion five hundred million more 

 than you bought of merchandise from the other countries. That shows 

 the importance of the agricultural interests in the United States. I 

 shall talk no longer of your calling; it is impossible, my friends, to 

 magnify it; it is impossible to exaggerate it. The farmers of America 

 are tne sovereigns; they are the political sovereigns of the country. If 

 me tarmers of this country are prosperous the government is safe and 

 secure; if they are rich, the government is strong and healthy. My 

 friends, the tillers of the soil are the pillars of the Republic, and as 

 Mr. Van Dresser said, there is a joy in the ownership of a piece of the 

 soil, in the ownership of a piece of Mother Earth, that no one else can 

 know. The farmers and agriculturalists founded this nation; love of 

 liberty and love of property, too, is what brought your ancestors across 

 the waters of the Atlantic to the shores; love of liberty and love of 

 property is what planted your fathers up and down the Vermont val- 

 leys and on these hillsides. 



My friends, in conclusion, the same love of liberty and love of prop- 

 erty is what will preserve you and bless you and your posterity and will 

 make and- continue to you and to them for the years of the future a 

 free and contented and happy people. I am glad to have had an op- 

 portunity to look into your faces and to say these things to you. 



President Bruce. — The thirty-fourth annual meeting of the Vermont 

 Dairvmen's Association is now adjourned. 



