233 WISCONSIN STATE AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY. 
bushel of corn or wheat, nor a pound of pork or wool shipped east 
from the west side of the Mississippi; when all that vast expanse 
of country drained by the Rio Grande, the Red river, the Missouri, 
the Columbia and their tributaries, will consume their own 
bread, and manufacture their own products; and I know of no 
good reason why Wisconsin and Illinois, Iowa and Minnesota 
might not immediately inaugurate measures that would profitably 
dispose of a large part of their surplus products in the same way, 
thereby quietly saving an immense cost in transportation to 
the Atlantic states, much of it to be returned at great expense 
to find a market here where the raw material for the same was pro¬ 
duced. I am glad to know that these facts are already attracting 
attention, and are being largely acted upon. These long hidden 
mechanical resources of the northwest are being rapidly developed 
and set to work, both of matter and of mind. The entire Missis¬ 
sippi valley will soon be all resounding with the hum of machin¬ 
ery, as it already is in many localities. 
Should the traveler of to-day, after the lapse of twenty years, 
revisit the shores of the Fox, Wisconsin and the Rock, he would 
be perfectly surprised at the Lowells, the Pittsburgs and the 
Wheelings he would encounter now everywhere up and down these 
streams. And these are but in their infancy, time is on the wing, 
enterprise is on the war path. These manufacturing facilities 
will soon be doubled, trebled, quadrupled. 
Then, farmers, what is our duty in the premises? Encourage 
them. Use all kinds of machinery on the farm that can be used 
to advantage (no others). Pay for them. Take care of them. 
House them. Make them last as long and do as much work as 
possible, thereby commending them to your old fogy neighbor. 
And still farther; if you have a son or daughter, or a friend 
that manifests a taste for mechanics, for art, or for trade, set them 
at it. Don’t allow yourself to be wheedled into the silly notion 
that the farm above all other parts on this earth, is consecrated 
ground; that the home of the mechanic or the artisan is not as 
sacred as the home of the farmer. God makes no difference, and 
we should not. Success gives tone to an enterprise. It does not 
make so much difference what a man goes at, as how he gees at 
it, and how he sticks to it. Then, out on all this patronizing way 
