ILLINOIS STATE DAIRYMEN’S ASSOCIATION. 
59 
partially understood and still less acted upon. They are now engaging and 
will continue with increasing power to engage the best energies of our best 
minds, in their solution. 
To the producer, this is of the greatest moment. Every reduction 
adds to the value of land and the result of labor, and enables products to 
be removed to markets hitherto inaccessible. Every such reduction renders 
more abundant and cheaper the necessities of life, alike to the rich and to 
the poor. A few }eais ago and the millions of bushels of cereals, tons of 
meats, and dairy pioducts of this great valley, now supplying cheap food 
for vast populations in both hemispheres, could not have been sent to them. 
And to day the same may be said in regard to a large share of our vast 
product of Indian corn, though so cheap as not unfrequently to be used for 
fuel, and which if we could find a cheaper proscess of marketing, could be 
increased almost indefinitely. What then is to be done in this direction ? 
How can we promote this great interest ? What do we need ? What 
difficulties are there m our way ? These are questions of the greatest 
moment but to which time will only permit a hasty glance. What do our 
pruducers need which they can in justice ask for ? I answer: First they 
need more regular and fixed rates of transportation. Without this the 
producer is in a sea of uncertainty—ever m doubt in what to engage his 
labor and capital. At the rates of to-day, he has a fair margin of profit, 
but what of to-morrow ? An arbitrary advance when he is ready to ship 
or sell, may result in a prohibition or a loss. 
You have no doubt all had or seen an experience like this. The evil 
bears with equal force upon middle-men, who are obliged to protect them¬ 
selves from this risk by paying reduced prices ; or in case of loss, seek to 
recover it in the future, and thus sooner or later to obtain it from the 
producer, who must pay for all these extra hazards or losses. So that if he 
gains this year, it is but to lose it the next. 
There are no doubt, points, where owing to water competition or other 
causes, it would be difficult to secure always fixed reasonable rates, but not 
so in most cases. Most of these rapid fluctuations are the result of the 
arbitrary will of a few or the incompetency and reckless management of 
men seeking purely selfish ends, depressing to-day in order to monopolize 
and extort to morrow. 
Second, again the producer needs, and should have, more equal rates 
in proportion to distance. It is most natural that a man should feel 
aggrieved and complain of unjust discriminations at being charged fifty 
dollars per car, while at a more remote point but thirty or forty dollars is 
