264 
Annual Report of the 
you have your doctor’s bill on hand. Now we are financially sick, 
and the question is whether we better remain sick as long as we 
live. Shall we allow obligations to go on steadily depreciating so 
that the debt we incur to-day don’t stand in the same relation to 
things in ten years as they do now? 
Mr. Sanderson - . There is evidently a great wrong somewhere, 
either my friend Robbins is wrong, or my other friend Field is 
wrong. I would like to ask Mr. Field if there is anything to pre¬ 
vent us all from being money-lenders, if we turn our property into 
money, and if we can make more out of that by lending it at ten 
pes cent., why don’t we all do it ? Are we not very stupid for not 
doing it, if we are all going to get rich so quick by it ? 
President Bascom. If money rests only on property, why not 
have just as much money as our property represents? Why not 
put it all into money, and go to loaning the money on the market ? 
Mr. Boa^stor. I would like the indulgence of the convention for 
a few minutes. I was here at the last convention of this society 
and I noticed that there was a great want of sympathy and philan¬ 
thropy exhibited in the papers that were produced. 
I take this opportunity to refer to that spirit. I remarked it at 
the time, and I was anxious when Secretary Field’s paper on inter¬ 
est was read, to rise and make a few remarks in that direction. 
Perhaps the chairman will recollect an individual like your humble 
servant, popping up frequently, desiring to speak, but who did not 
get a chance to. I am no professor, except to a great amount of 
ignorance, but I don’t consider this convention a just representation 
of the farming-interest of our state. I am well acquainted with 
an individual who started with nothing but his hands. His prop¬ 
erty was deeded for him by a speculator, who gave him three to five 
years, at 12 per cent., and the time rolled by. He has been work¬ 
ing, with strict economy, (for it is your humble servant), and to 
this day he has been paying interest on the money owed for that 
farm, and within the last two years this individual has been fore¬ 
closed upon ^because this accumulative interest rolled over like a 
snow-ball, and he could not make his payments, and consequentl} r 
he finally lost his farm. 
President Bascom. We need to be thoroughly sympathetic one 
with another. But we need always to have that intelligence that 
will enable us, when we are in trouble through our own faults, to 
v 
