106 WISCONSIN STATE AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY. 
gave her the advantage over all manufacturing peoples who fol¬ 
lowed the old handicrafts. She stopped in a few years all the 
looms in Turkey. She reduced the exportation of cloth from 
India from 250,000,000 yards per year to absolutely nothing. 
These results were easily accomplished, for her steam engines, 
through her skillfully prepared machinery, were more than a 
match for all the hand-power in the world. Twenty years ago 
her steam-power was estimated to equal the muscular energy of 
six hundred millions of men, that is, of more than the entire 
adult male population of the globe. The coal to raise the steam 
was mined by forty thousand men, and the engines driven by it 
were built by 35,000 more. So that a substitute for the muscular 
energy of the whole adult population of the world is provided for 
by less than 100,000 men. Give to Wisconsin an equal share of 
. mechanical power, in proportion to its population, it would pos¬ 
sess a force equal to the muscular energy of 20,000,000 of men. 
This power now lies buried in jour peat-beds, or thunders use¬ 
lessly down your rivers. The practical question is, will the people 
encourage the adoption of measures to utilize this power, and 
convert it into wealth? By a multiplication of industries a large 
proportion of the millions now paid for transportation would be 
saved. 
The exact cost of transporting our raw material to the east, and 
of bringing back manufactured goods, cannot be estimated. We 
know it is great, it is felt in every sale of material and in every 
purchase of products. According to a statement passed to me by 
the secretary of the Milwaukee chamber of commerce, it appears 
that in 1872 the wheat crop amounted to 22,300,000 bushels, of 
which 15,800,000 were shipped at a cost of about thirty cents per 
bushel, including storage and insurance, making a grand total of 
nearly $5,000,000. The amount paid for the transportation of the 
surplus ’wheat crop the present year will be nearly $7,000,000. 
To this sum add the sums paid on other raw materials and parti¬ 
ally manufactured products and on the various kinds of goods im¬ 
ported from the older states, including many articles made of wood 
and iron, and it will be found that we are paying $25,000,000 an¬ 
nually for the support of wealthy corporations, and to the same 
•extent impoverishing ourselves. Apply the remedy! 
