THE SUMMER MEETING. 43 



individual barrel in question. Some questions of some importance have been 

 answered in that time. Keconstruction, remonetization of silver, the resump- 

 tion of specie payment, and again and again the people, by their suffrages, have 

 decided who should be branded — I use the word understandingly, Mr. Presi- 

 dent — who should be branded as President of the United States, and still the 

 great question of how many sizes of peck baskets there may be still remains 

 unanswered. Kings and emperors and empires have fallen, and devastating 

 war has wasted vast provinces on either hemisphere, and many a brave man 

 has gone forth to fight for a leader, or an idea, or his right, and returned not 

 to receive the greetings and embraces that awaited him so long, and still the 

 farmer of Michigan gathers his harvest in a quart box that holds about a pint 

 and three-quarters, and then goes to Lansing and prays " that he might be 

 delivered of his adversary." And now, as though life was too long and breath 

 too plenty, we are invited to discuss this matter again, and I hold that we are 

 fully competent to settle the question. 



Mr. President, it is sometimes said there are but two ways to do a thing ; one 

 is right, the other is wrong. One way has been suggested, which I think 

 is the wrong way; another way will be pointed out in this paper, which I think 

 is the right way. The remedy already suggested is "the law," and I think 

 the method is wrong. First, because similar laws, if such exist, are inade- 

 quate and inoperative, and second, because it is incapable of completion, and 

 third, because it is not needed. To show that laws made for a similar purpose 

 are inoperative, we have only to glance at some of the most familiar articles 

 of trade. We have law to tell us the dimensions of a cord of wood, but there 

 is scarcely a day in the year except Sundays that loads of wood are not sold in 

 our streets and neither buyer nor seller knows how much wood there is only as 

 he guesses at it. So of the article of hay. It is true that in town, where it is 

 convenient to do so, a large part of the hay is weighed before it is sold, but 

 where there are no scales near, hay is sold by ''guessing it off." Everybody 

 knows this to be true, but possibly it has not occurred to everybody that a 

 remedy for this terrible state of things may be reached by just marking the 

 farmers' wagons in plain letters, "This is a ton wagon," and on the sleds, 

 " This is a three-cord sled."' Then nobody would, be cheated, and the wood- 

 chopper's reputation would be saved. I am told we have a law which defines 

 a "bushel," and tells how much space a bushel occupies, and now if any- 

 body really knows how big a pile of apples it takes to make a bushel, I wish 

 he would rise and explain. I have been told that some men who buy apples 

 largely on speculation have baskets with which they measure the apples out of 

 the wagons that hold four and a half to five pecks. Perhaps some one will 

 say he would have his apples measured in standard baskets. Well, perhaps he 

 wouldn't sell his apples. I know a man — I can give you his name and show 

 you the house he lives in — who had apples to sell and "he didn't mean to be 

 scalped in that way," so he procured some standard baskets, loaded up a load 

 of apples, put on his baskets, and went to market. The consequence was that 

 he concluded to ship his apples to Chicago. They wouldn't buy his apples. 

 They won't buy apples without they can measure them to suit themselves. A 

 farmer told me last fall that ho put 17 bushels of apples into his wagon and 

 took them to market. They measured but 14. Well, that was not very bad, 

 only a little over 17 per cent, I believe. I don't know how much they 

 would have taken if we had no law to define what a " bushel " is. 



I am told there is a law prescribing the quantity of cement that shall constitute 



