108 ILLINOIS DAIRYMEN'S ASSOCIATION. 



extravagant ; and yet it is so. As to the manufacture of the barbed wire 

 fence, I will read you a few statistics which perhaps will be interesting. 



NATIONAl^ FENCE. 



A necessity for the economy in fencing which this system has introduced 

 is thus strikingly shown in figures : 



To protect $2,450,000,000 worth of growing crops from being destroyed by 

 $1,659,211,933 worth of live stock, the farmers of the United States have built 

 1,619,195,428 rods of fence, inclosing 250,505,614 acres of ground, with an av- 

 erage of 6.46 rods per acre costing $1.08 per rod, or $6.98 per acre, making a 

 total cost of $1,748,529,185, or about $89,317,192 above the value of the live 

 stock. Adding the total annual expense for maiotaming our fences, we find 

 that for every dollar's worth of live stock that we have, we have expended 

 $1.06 in fencing, to protect $1.47i worth of crops. 



You will see from this that the invention of the barbed wire fence has 

 reduced the expense of fences at least one-half, and at that rate saves enough 

 to pay the national debt in two years. This fence is used everywhere, and 

 there is always found my picture— everybody knows me all over the country 

 from my picture. This invention was first brought out by me in putting up 

 a bit of fence for my own use. I secured a patent immediately, and after 

 awhile I sold the patents for $60,000, and ten cents one hundred pounds roy- 

 alty, and they paid me in 1882, $153,000 royalty. 



Toast—" Our Export Trade." 



Eesponse by C. C. Buell. 



Mr. Chairman^ Ladies and Gentlemen : This subject is no joke, and I am 

 no joker. The subject suggests some analogies, to which I will call your at- 

 tention. When one country needs the produqts of another country, when 

 those products are sent from one country to another, in a certain sense, a 

 vacuum is produced, which is filled only by the return of the products of 

 another country to this country. And it is impossible for such an inter- 

 change of products to take place without something analogous to what I 

 have suggested, occurring. A debt is created or a credit exists on one side, 

 which may be called a vacuum, and it is filled by what another country has 

 to produce, which is said to pay this debt. It is often gold and silver which 

 is sent back, and gold and silver are the products of the country. This in- 

 terchange, this transfer of products is made under an economic law of com^ 

 merce, and any obstacle thrown in the way of this free interchange is an 

 obstacle thrown in the way of the fullest extension of the wealth of the 

 country and of the world, necessary to promote the happiness and well-being 

 of the people. There is another law figure which suggests to us an analogy. 



Action and re-action are equal, and in opposite directions. If this coun- 

 try has a superabundance of any product winch some other country wants, 

 we send it over and receive back something which we want. 



The effect of all extravagance in the matter of tariff is the prevention of 

 this interchange between countries, prevents the carrying out of these econ- 

 omic laws. 



One of the excuses made for the raising of these barriers is the apology 

 that it was done to protect infants- infant industry. But in this respect 

 did you ever know of an industry getting so old that it did not still claim to 



