THE FARMER'S TVAR AGAINST MONOPOLIES. 377 



ment per mile, $37,790.30; net earnings per mile. 

 $453.67; roads earned on their cost and equipment H 

 per cent.' 



" It will be seen that while more than half of the 

 mileage of roads reported on is in Wisconsin, only about; 

 one-third of the gross earnings were obtained in this 

 State, so that the showing for this State alone, were it 

 given entirely separate, might have been still more un- 

 favorable. 



" Colonel Cochrane replied that if the companies were 

 not making money, many of their managers were. ' Be- 

 sides,' he said, ' the men who now control these roads 

 have, in many instances, put into them comparatively 

 little money. Do you know how these roads have, 

 most of them, been built ? In the first place, they got 

 land grants that in some counties are worth almost as 

 much as the roads cost. Then they sent agents to the 

 counties through which the road was to be built, who 

 induced them to vote bonds to the companies and take 

 stock ; in some instances they promised them a first 

 mortgage on the road when it should be completed. 

 Then they got bonds from cities, and, in some cases, 

 even from townships. Of course the interest on these 

 all has to be raised by taxing us farmers. But that is 

 not all. Their agents went through the country, and 

 wherever they found a farmer who had a few hundred 

 dollars laid by, they persuaded him to buy the stock of 

 the road, and pay cash for it. Their argument was a 

 very plausible one ; they told us that we were paying 

 from twenty-five to fifty cents a bushel to get our wheat 

 hauled to Milwaukee, and that when the road was 

 completed they would carry it for from five to ten cents. 

 The difference would be added to the value of every 



