THIRTY-FIFTH ANNUAL CONVENTION. 27 



price from $1500 to $2000 an acre. We ask, "Do you grow any 

 corn?" No. "Grow any wheat?" No. "We ship all we buy 

 from Illinois and feed it to the dairy cows." "Can you make 

 interest upon this soil?" Yes. "Our renters pay from $40 to 

 $60 an acre for rent per year." Just think of it. Take an illus- 

 tration : Suppose you had a factory here, in which you had in- 

 vested $10,000. At the end of the year you would expect a 

 nominal interest of 6 per cent. But, after doing a year's busi- 

 ness, you find that you have actually made 12 per cent. What do 

 you do? Would you sell a share of that stock, if it was worth 

 $100 for $100? No. You would want $200. Your factory, 

 instead of being worth ten thousand dollars, would be worth 

 twenty thousand dollars. And that is the way the dairy cow has 

 raised the price of land in the European countries. 



Conditions In the East. 



Now let's come across the ocean, and what do we find? I 

 have traveled extensively in the east, I know the country there. 

 That soil upon which the Pilgrims set their foot is now a hazel 

 brush and it was once rich and fertile. A few years ago Rhode 

 Island ran a Homeseekers excursion. When you want to go to 

 the wilderness of the United States you don't go west now, you 

 go east. I come this way a little further to the land in New 

 York, and I find abandoned farm after abandoned farm. They 

 had fine houses upon them at one time, beautiful mansions, beau- 

 tiful buildings, but gone now into decay. Now and then I strike 

 parts of that country that is profitable and prosperous. I asked 

 the man how much his land is worth there, and he tells me it 

 runs from $250.00 an acre to about $500.00.. I can show you 

 land in the Mohawk Valley worth about $450.00 an acre. I 

 have a proposition on my desk for 185 acres of land, no more 

 than five miles from that place, which once was better than the 

 land which is now worth $450.00 an acre. Upon this 185 acres 

 there are five acres of orchard, a barn and a house, and I can buy 



