Wisconsin State Agricultural Society. 
341 
As the West is now situated, having few men and little capital 
engaged in manufacturing and hence little home demand for her 
produce, it is absolutely necessary for the greatest profit, that her 
products be marketed in the most concentrated form, that the cost 
of transportation may be but a small per cent, of their value. Corn 
can be raised with profit for one cent a pound, hence transportation 
that costs five cents a bushel, adds nearly ten per cent, to the cost 
of the corn. But it takes no more grain to make a pound of meat, 
cheese, or wool in the West than in the East, while the cost of 
transportation when converted into these products, is much less 
than that of the raw material. This is one reason why there is 
greater prosperity among stock raisers, wool growers and dairymen, 
than among the grain growers of the West, and why they are less 
bitter in their denunciations of railroads and other agents that join 
the producer and consumer. They have a constant and ready mar¬ 
ket and their products are of a kind that cost little to transport. 
The successful solution of the transportation problem by the farm¬ 
er, is not necessarily in securing the minimum price per pound for 
carrying his goods to market, but in marketing them in such a 
form, that the freight and commission shall be a minimum per 
cent, of their value. 
I am well aware that a change from grain-growing to stock or 
dairy farming cannot readily be made over a large tract of country, 
neither would it be desirable could it be done. The change needs 
to be a gradual one that shall continue until there is a balance in 
the proportion of all farm products to the demands of the market. 
To sustain this balance will often require more of a certain com¬ 
modity one year than another, to meet the fluctuations in demand 
that result from various causes. On this account, a judicious sys¬ 
tem of mixed farming will generally be safer for the ordinary farmer, 
who may not be able to anticipate the wants of the market. 
It would be a most desirable thing to do, could the West, as is so 
often urged upon it, share the manufacturing of the country with 
the East, and thus bring the'producers and consumers of both farm 
and manufactured products more nearly together. But no rapid 
change in this direction can be hoped for. The West is young, not 
more than half a centur} 7 old. It was settled mostly by young men 
without money, and so is now, notwithstanding her great resources, 
comparatively poor. There is no surplus capital to engage in man- 
