1884.] THINGS WHICH SEEM WORTHLESS. 89 



ican plains. His hide is worth a trifling sum, but that is the only- 

 portion of him which has any value. Bring him where facilities 

 for transportation are a little better, and his tallow is worth some- 

 thing. Another remove puts value upon some of the choicest por- 

 tions of the carcass, and so by successive removals you extend the 

 range of values, until you find the place where flesh, and blood, and 

 bone, and horn, and hair, and hoof, and even intestinal contents, 

 have all a value. Throughout all this course, extending use runs 

 evenly harnessed with increasing value. It is because these por- 

 tions can be carried where they all find use that they become of 

 value. Illustrations upon this point might be multiplied a thou- 

 sand fold, but we neither have need of them nor space for them. 



Our one illustration suggests the remedy for worthlessness aris- 

 ing from this cause. It lies in a perfected system of transporta- 

 tion. Either the serviceable things must be carried to the persons 

 who need them, or the persons themselves must be transported to 

 the locality where the things they need are to be found. We call 

 one movement "transportation," the other "migration." Both are 

 finding, in this busy age of ours, an astonishing development. 

 Though accompanied by much of incidental suffering and waste, 

 both are, in the main, grandly beneficent. They bring need and 

 its supply together. They furnish the opportunity for service to 

 the things formed for service. They supply the lack of service to 

 those whose lives for want of it were narrowed and darkened and 

 shortened. It may be that you will not readily perceive just how 

 to apply this remedy to the case that troubles you. I cannot prom- 

 ise that you can so apply it, and yet you may be able to do it. 



Problems of this kind are now occupying men's minds as never 

 before, and some most astonishing results have been attained. 

 The surplus grass upon the Kansas prairies, worthless a short time 

 ago, is now carried a thousand miles into the mountains to feed 

 the miners' mules. It is a movement which gives the Kansas 

 farmer an additional source of income, the miner cheaper and 

 more plentiful food for his beasts of burden, and the railroad com- 

 pany employment for both labor and capital in the business of 

 transportation. It is beneficent in every direction. 



Now, considering what has been accomplished, in recent years, in 

 the extension and improvement of the means of transportation, it 

 is absurd to suppose that the movement is to be stopped just at the 

 present point. No doubt but it is to go on. Things are to be 



