wheels of industry and furnish a highway for the better transport- 

 ation of the products of the farmer and the manufacturer, creating 

 a home market and cheap carriage for their surplus productions. 



It is then and not till then that the farmer awakes to his own 

 interest. It is then the farmer becomes anxious to probe nature 

 and wrest from her her richest treasures. His calling assumes a 

 new dignity and importance. It ceases to be a mere means of 

 livelihood, and becomes one of the chiefest instrumentalities of 

 wealth, influence and honor. His land rises in value, his produc- 

 tions are increased, and he supplies himself not only with the 

 necessaries of life, but with its luxuries also, and he becomes 

 truly a lord in creation. 



The farmer who produces food and the raw materials for the 

 manufacturer, must in return receive the products of the manufac- 

 turers, such as tools, clothing and furniture, and the closer their 

 interests are allied the greater the profits and the cheaper will be 

 their products to each other. 



The produce of the farm especially will not bear a long trans- 

 portation, as the cost would absorb the whole profit above pro- 

 duction. The cost of food that would feed a thousand people at 

 home, would not feed five hundred at a distance of a hundred 

 miles, without the ready means of steam or water transportation. 



Thus it will be seen that a population combining all these in- 

 terests in close relation can supply each other's wants much cheap- 

 er and to the material advantage of all, sending the surplus to a 

 foreign market and bringing in return such articles as are not pro- 

 duced in the home market and giving to industry its greatest re- 

 ward. 



The capital expended in the construction of improved means of 

 communication will generally repay the cost in the increase of the 

 value of property situated within the range of its business. It 

 brings the producer nearer his market and he reaps more equal ad- 

 vantages with those who live nearer the cities and large manu- 

 facturing towns. 



The cost of an article depends not only on the production but 

 also on the cost of brins;in>r it to market. Coal would be valuless 

 at the mines unless there were other means than human power to 

 transport it to the consumer. But with steam and railroad facili- 

 ties it becomes cheap fuel thousands of miles from the mines. 

 And the same power brings all parts of a country into close rela- 



