No. 4.] FARMERS' CONGRESS. 445 



have found embodiment in the statute books of the country origi- 

 nating in the agricultural Congress may be named that which pro- 

 vides a secretary of agriculture for the President's cabinet. The 

 Interstate Commerce Commission was also the fruit of the agri- 

 cultural Congress, and many other laws giving tone and vigor to 

 commercial and agricultural interests have found their starting- 

 point in earlier sessions of this national organization. 



The subjects upon which addresses were delivered in the Con- 

 gress of 1892 were : " The Transportation of Agricultural Prod- 

 ucts," by Hon. W. Pope Yeaman of Missouri; "The Beet 

 Industry in the United States," by Prof. M. A. Lunn of Nebraska ; 

 " The Floral Interest," by Mrs. Robert A. McClellen of Alabama ; 

 "Success in Farming," by Mrs. Josephine Walker of Kansas; 

 " Highway Transportation on Common Roads," by Hon. J. M. 

 Stahl of Illinois and Hon. W. S. Delano of Nebraska; "The 

 Agricultural College," by Pres. George F. Fairchild of Kansas ; 

 "Government Ownership of Railways," by Hon. H. C. Browne 

 of Georgia; "Scientific Relation of Money to Business," by 

 Hon. L. H. Welles of Iowa ; "Agriculture in the South," by Gen. 

 H. L. Burkitt of Mississippi and F. M. Clemanes of Kentucky ; 

 *' Agricultural Experiment Stations," by President Fernald of 

 Maine State College; and " Individuality of American Agricult- 

 ure," by Daniel Needham of Massachusetts. After the delivery 

 of these several addresses time was taken for radical discussion of 

 the subjects which were presented in the essays read to the 

 Congress, 



One of the most important subjects discussed was the " Govern- 

 ment Construction of Common Roads." The cost of construction 

 of common roads over prairie land, such as are found in most of 

 the agricultural States of the West, would be largely in excess of 

 the building of equally good roads in New England, the Middle 

 and Southern Atlantic States. Nature has poorly supplied mate- 

 rial in the prairie States for such construction, and, with a sparsely 

 settled country, the great cost is an absolute prohibition, if the 

 means are to be supplied by local taxation. It was stated by the 

 Hon. J. M. Stahl of Illinois that highway transportation in this 

 country cost twenty -five cents per ton per mile, which is nearly 

 two hundred per cent more than the average railway and water 

 haul. He discussed the value of good roads in connection with 

 public school education, showing, by statistics taken from a large 

 field of observation, that bad roads reduced school attendance 

 twenty-five per cent. In connection with the destructive influences 

 of horses aud carriages used in transportation, the cost over bad 

 roads is more than trebled, aud this without taking into account 



