154 STATE BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



THE FARMER'S INTEREST IN LEGISLATION. 

 REV. L. G. HERBERT, Watervliet, at BERRIEN COUNTY Institute, Berrien Springs. 



He is as much interested in legislation as, indeed, more interested in it than, any 

 other class of men, both as related to himself and also to general humanity. The 

 farmer is the main shaft in the wheel of progress. If he fails, then we all suffer. 

 If he be handicapped in the development of his energies or the soil, the conse- 

 quences are in that proportion disastrous to the whole race. We may survive the 

 conquences of almost any other forms of the tnist mania, but if the farmers should 

 organize a trust we would all be absolutely at their mercy. 



The farmer has been treated with a great deal of gushing sentimentality on the 

 part of sleek politicians, and at the same time he has had to be contented with 

 w^hat he could get in the way of legislation at the bands of the legislature. He 

 has no power to fix prices for his produce, or to make prices for what he must 

 purchase. He sees the stock industry in the hands of tkose who know not how 

 to milk a cow or feed a hog or shear a sheep. Under the combinations of capital 

 he sees himself compelled to raise his produce in competition with those who 

 have millions of acres of cheap but rich grazing grounds and grain farms, teeming 

 with millions of live stock, fed and marketed at the price of cheap labor. The 

 small farmer has a gloomy outlook before him. All economic favors are the 

 results of legislation. All discriminations are the children of either unjust legisla- 

 tion or dishonest men, many of whom have for years been successfully plying their 

 trade without righteous rebuke. The sessions of our legislature are beset with 

 trained lobbyists looking after the interests of the capitalists, often regardless of 

 the toiler. 



WE MUST FIGHT FIRE WITH FIRE. 



There must be organization among the fa,rmers. They must get together. 

 There must be an educated yeomanry. There must be intelligent outlook and in- 

 telligent action. Ignorance is the mother of oppression, and we are to be blamed if 

 we allow our rights to be usurped by the godless. Send your boys and girls to your 

 State Agricultural College, where they may not only be trained in the science of 

 farming, but also In the principles of government and political economy, and when 

 the time is ripe for a new order of things they will be ready for the work of true 

 empire building. Many prophecy revolution. There is need of education on the 

 part of the laborers, and then all talk of revolution will be as fog, to be cleared 

 away by the intelligent and thus powerful laboring classes. 



Watch your representatives. Write to them. Speak to 'them. Tell them what 

 you want. There is nothing that ever promised more success than the grange 

 movement. Keep it moving. Revive it. Get together. Lay aside petty jeal- 

 ousies. Read the papers. Get hold of good books. Raise your children in the 

 atmosphere of knowledge. Support your State Agricultural College. Send the 

 boys there to school at least tliree months during the winter. Send the girls there 

 to keep the boys out of mischief. Educate, agitate, stimulate, cogitate, and keep 

 in the front of the procession. We all know how to talk, but let us get together 

 and crystallize our talking into intelligent action. 



FARM FENCING. 



WALLACE E. WRIGHT, Coldwater, at BRANCH COUNTY Institute. Quincy. 



While the subject of farm fencing is one which, in a country like ours, where tim- 

 ber is becoming scarce, is naturally of interest to us all, I feel my inability to 

 say one thing interesting or instructive on the subject, as my experience is lim- 

 ited. The time is now here when it seems that we must look for something cheaper 

 than rails or lumber for outside or permanent fencing. There are many kinds of 



WOVEN WIRE FENCING 



which can be built for from 40 to 50 cents per rod, which when well built are very 

 satisfactory; this does not include the posts. I have recently built some of the 

 Lamb wire fence, 11 wires, which seems to be a very strong fence. I set posts 

 one rod apart and would not advise setting more than twenty feet. apart at the 



