290 MINNESOTA HISTOKICAL SOCIETY COLLECTIONS. 



You may ask me how that concerns us. Well, I must reply 

 that it concerns us very materially. The whole world, com- 

 mercially speaking, is not as large as the states of the Union 

 were before the Civil War. It is not so far from anywhere in 

 the world to any other place in the world, considering the time 

 or expense, as it was from Boston to San Francisco before 

 the war. When we can send all the export wheat of the entire 

 Pacific coast to Asia, to be eaten by people who heretofore 

 have lived almost wholly on rice, we have just to that extent 

 helped our farmers in the East. The wheat that heretofore 

 went from San Francisco round the Horn to Europe does not 

 go there now, and it is not competing to the extent of a bushel 

 this year. I think I am safe in saying that there will be more 

 wheat exported this year to Asia and eaten by the Asiatics 

 than the greatly dreaded Argentine Republic will send to Eu- 

 rope; and that alone makes for our people an advance of, say, 

 ten or twelve cents out of the thirty cents that wheat is higher 

 than it was last year. I think it will account for fully one-third 

 of the fact that Walla Walla and California wheat is not com- 

 peting in Europe. 



There are a great many things that could be said in regard 

 to bettering the condition of our agriculture, but, as I remarked 

 in beginning to speak, it would be the history of the state, and 

 I will not take any more of your time to-night. In conclusion, 

 I wish to thank you for your attention, and I hope that I have 

 not wearied you. 



