54 
STATE AGKICULTUKAL SOCIETY. 
many of the eastern cities, and next to impossible in England. 
By these means the company find it easy to get the most 
skillful, sober and industrious men. * * * * 
“Will steel rails soon drive iron rails out of the market? 
This is a question in which manufacturers are vitally interest¬ 
ed. There is not a doubt that steel, as a wearing surface for 
rails, is the best material known. It is also an undeniable 
fact, that good iron rails of a section proportioned to the heavy 
locomotives and heavy traffic of to-day, never hrcah in cold 
weather^ and in this respect are very much safer than steeh 
The St. Paul road procured 200 tons of Bessemer steel rails, 
from England, in 1868. Some of them were laid in their yard 
where the work is very severe, but where the trains run 
slowly; and they answer exceedingly well. Some of them 
were laid in the main track, a few miles from Milwaukee. 
At each end of the steel-laid track, the word ^slow^ is display¬ 
ed, to warn engineers of danger. Why is this? Some of 
them have broken^ and they dare not run fast over them. 
Some of these rails are exceedingly tough and bend readily, 
while others will snap off like glass before bending enough 
for a track of 850 feet radius. Of the 56,000 rails furnished 
the St Paul road, by the Milwaukee Iron Company, not one 
has broken in the track, and only nine have been returned to 
the mills as defective. Grood iron rails can now be furnished 
at Milwaukee for $83 per ton, currency. Their average life in 
Wisconsin is not less than ten years. The solid steel rails 
have not, as yet, been put down there for $100 per ton, gold. 
There is much doubt if their production can be very much 
cheapened, even in this country. The Bessemer process de¬ 
mands iron entirely free from sulphur and phosphorus. Very 
little iron, and that of the highest price, is suitable for Besse¬ 
mer steel. Besides this fact, the cost for plant is enormous 
the waste very great, and the product very uncertain in quality. 
In addition to this, it is well known that Mr. Bessemer is 
about the only one who has, as yet, made much money out of 
the Bessemer process. We will, however, call the price of 
