want to explain about what Mrs. Holmes has just said. 

 I was at Galva last week and she made a speech there, 

 and she told us many truths— so many that I felt kind 

 of nervous about it, and when I met her to-night my 

 heart was full of pity for some of you, and I begged 

 her to spare you folks, because I was afraid some of 

 you would feel badly. 



Seriously, gentlemen, there is too much truth in what 

 she says. We do not realize at our homes the impor- 

 tance of allowing wives to feel that self-respect, the 

 dignity, the personal nobility of character that a little 

 money in the pocket gives. If you can't trust your 

 wife, who in the world can you? 



While I am on the floor I want to say a few words 

 of caution in reference to the course that our farmers 

 are pursuing. If jou could go to Europe and travel 

 through the rural districts, you could see where the 

 land has been tilled constantly for over two thou- 

 sand years and yet is as productive to-day as it was 

 when first broken; the system of agriculture over 

 there, combined with the dairy interest, and the fact 

 of the immense population, has brought the land to a 

 condition of greater fertility than it was at that ancient 

 day. Now, what are we doing here in the United 

 States. Less than three hundred years since we took 

 possession of the country. How do we find it to-day? 

 In those New England States, where our forefathers 

 commenced farming, the land is burned out, a barren 

 waste, its farmers starved out, and gone away, great 

 areas of that land, and little, if any of it, excepting 

 where dairying has been carried on, is worth within 

 fifty dollars of what it was a few years ago. Now, we 

 come into Pennsylvania where I was born and raised, 

 and where land used to be w T orth $125 an acre, and 



