273 FARMERS' INSTITUTES. 



My father came from Connecticut and used to tell of the worn-out fields 

 of Connecticut. My mother came from Virginia, and her father used to tell 

 me of the worn-out fields of Virginia — " worn out raising tobacco and nig- 

 gers." So when I began to farm it was with a solemn vow that I would not 

 wear out that land. At that time the " Michigan Farmer " was edited by 

 Mr. Isham, and he advised drawing out manure in piles and plowing it in 

 in the rain or at night, and in my early zeal, without knowledge, in obedi- 

 ence to the Farmer, I actually plowed under manure in the night and in the 

 rain until my horses were galled. The next year where my piles of manure 

 had been my wheat stalks laid perfectly fiat and there was no wheat in them 

 either. So this theory did not work, and I found that we need the compari- 

 son of experience to correct our theories and provide us with common sense. 



Now farmers, stimulate each other to raise grass and to compel two spears 

 to grow where one grew before, to leave some of the original forest trees, to 

 beautify nature, to draw out your manure and spread it when you draw it, 

 and in every way to keep to the front in your profession. 



I see in the audience before me two young men who contemplate matri- 

 mony within the coming year, and I pray you to take none but the best girl 

 on the earth. I see before me also some young women who have thought 

 somewhat on the same subject, and 1 pray you also to take none but the best 

 and certainly to take no young man who needs to eat cinnamon and cloves 

 lest you should know where he has been. 



Another thing farmers need is less of toil for themselves and their wives. 

 More of social life is needed. A great change has come over our farming 

 communities in the last fourteen years in the relation of the farmers and their 

 wives to social and political life, and I attribute much of this change to the 

 work of the Granges throughout the country. 



There are certain laws which bear unequally on different classes. For in- 

 stance, as the laws are now the farmer pays more than his proportionate share 

 of the taxes. 



If the merchant or manufacturer finds an extra burden bearing upon him 

 from some law he is able to charge it over as an additional expense on his 

 wares. But the farmer is not able to do this, and so we are more largely inter- 

 ested than most classes in seeing that our laws are just and equal. 



Among the worst of these are our patent right laws. I believe that the 

 inventor should be paid, but what justice is there in a law which enables one 

 invention to reap a reward of ^62,000,000, as the Westinghouse air brake 

 has done? 



This law places unnecessary burdens on the people. Burdens never dis- 

 place themselves and are rarely displaced by those who profit by them. They 

 must be removed by those who feel the pressure. 



Everything is patented; there are 800 patents on plows, 700 on stoves, 

 300 on fences, and so on ad infinitum. 



You don't realize the burden of our patent system. You remember the 

 patent on the slide gate. A man bought the patent for $1.00 and started 

 out to collect $100,000. They undertook to raid the State and collect their 

 royalties from every user of the gates; until their iniquitous scheme ran 

 against our farmers' machine, the Grange, and was beaten. 



So, the well patent collected more money for royalties in Indiana because 

 they had no farmers' organization than all those organizations have cost in 

 all our country. 



