56 ILLINOIS STATE DAIRYMEN'S ASSOCIATION. 



duction that it would be premature for me to expect to add to the interest 

 or utility of your discussions of this subject ; and although largely interested 

 in general agriculture, I should hesitate to offer suggestions to those whose 

 larger and more practical experience better prepares them for instructors. 

 On these topics, I come rather as a learner. But I have thought that some 

 remarks upon a subject of iiH)ortance to all branches of agriculture, and 

 upon which largely depends its future development and pecuniary success, 

 might not be inappropriate to the present occasion. I mean the ways and 

 means of exchanging our surplus products for those of other sections and 

 nations : in other words, of getting them to market : or, in short, the subject 

 of transportation. " Everybody," says one of our most eminent writers 

 on political economy, " exchanges. Society is one vast hive of buyers and 

 " sellers. All men have a natural right to exchange their labor or their 

 " property with their fellow men. The laws of exchange are based on 

 " nothing less solid than the will of Grod." 



The greatest freedom is the greatest good, and every facility should be 

 given to this end. It is of vital importance to oach individual, every 

 " section, the entire nation, " and it is a high-handed infringement of natural 

 " right, a blow aimed at the life and source of property, when any authority 

 " seeks to restrict, or refuses to encourage the freedom of exchange, except 

 "it be justified by solid proof that other private or public rights, are 

 " infringed thereby.'' 



The productions most natural to our section, are grain, meats, and 

 those of the dairy. 



South Carolina produces rice ; Louisianna, sugar ; Mississippi and 

 other States, cotton ; China and Japan produce teas ; South America, 

 coffee ; Grermany and old and New England, manufactures. We need a 

 part of their surplus, they of ours. How we can effect these exchanges 

 with the least possible delay, risk and expense, is a great problem, in the 

 right solution of which all people and nations are alike interested. Every 

 unnecessary delay, risk or expense, obstructs this result, to the general 

 injury and the just good of no one. Delay increases interest on capital ; 

 risk, insurance ; and all undue cost hinders or obstructs. Civilization with 

 its countless blessings, has ever followed in the track of commerce. 

 Improvements in the mode of transportation have revolutionized nations, 

 and brought the must distant into intimate relationship. The order of 

 providence seems to be to unify humanity, to break down the barriers 

 erected by the malice or folly of man, and make of one nation all the 

 families of the earth. Thus, to-day we are the near neighbors, not only of 



