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 importance to all branches of agriculture, and 
upon which largely depends its future development and pecuniary success, 
might not he inappropriate to the present occasion. I mean the ways and 
means of exchanging our surplus products for those of other sections an 
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 an 
“ 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 God.” 
The greatest freedom is the greatest good, and every facility should be 
oiven 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; Louisiana, sugar; Mississippi and 
other States, cotton; China and Japan produce teas; South America, 
coffee • Uermany 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 
rio-ht 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 most distant into intimate relationship. The order o 
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 ot 
