State convention—manufacturing. 
201 
would, when completed, benefit alike the producer of the west 
and the consumer of the east. 
Mr. Anderson thought the Wisconsin river never could be made 
navigable for boats of sufficient size to be of practical value to 
our people on account of shifting sands, etc. He thought railroad 
transportation preferable to water, and he believed the people 
would come to rely almost wholly upon the former mode, as it 
could be done as cheaply, much quicker, and with greater safety. 
He believed the old fogy notion of water carriage, closed as it 
was for more than half the year in this state, dull and slow at 
best, would be in time abandoned for the iron horse and the steel 
rail. 
Hon. A. A. Boyce remarked that he believed the navigation of 
the Fox and Wisconsin was entirely practicable, and he referred 
to the opinion of the United States engineer, whose report fully 
concurred in this view. 
A valuable and highly interesting paper was then read by Vice 
President Cheney, upon a subject of vital interest to the state. 
I give it in full. 
THE IMPORTANCE OF MANUFACTURING WITH THE 
PECULIAR ADVANTAGES IN WISCONSIN FOR SUCH 
BRANCH OF INDUSTRY. 
BY VICE PRESIDENT RUFUS CHENEY. 
Mr. President and Fellow Citizens: The wisdom which inaugu¬ 
rated these annual meetings was fully demonstrated by the ad¬ 
dress, essays and discussions of last year, to which we all listened 
with so much interest, and which form so important a part of the 
volume of Transactions, which volume, in my opinion, is not ex¬ 
celled by any similar publication in the United States. 
The discussion of agricultural and manufacturing subjects is of the 
greatest importance, and should receive very much more attention 
than is ordinarily devoted to it. Especially is this true of the 
great and paramount interest of manufacturing in our state, so 
plentifully supplied with raw material of almost every kind. As 
a state, we are among the youngest of the sisterhood, our popula- 
