12 
WISCONSIN STATE AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY. 
nomic advantages, is so long blockaded by the fiat of the ice king 
that we could not dispense with the latter at whatever cost. But 
happily 7 ', we are not compelled to choose between them. We will 
employ both systems, because both are indispensable—the one 
for its speed and ever ready services, the latter for its economic 
advantages and capabilities of moving more tons to the mile in a 
given time. Indeed, with all grades of our present facilities, a 
vast amount of our surplus products remain unmoved, and great 
loss annually occurs in disposing of the redundant mass at a sac¬ 
rifice, such as the burning of corn for fuel, feeding it at inappro- 
/ 
priate times to stock, yielding less returns than it would if sold in 
market at living rates for transportation. 
Our country is one of vast proportions and extent, and is ca¬ 
pable, under suitable means of productive diffusion, of sustain¬ 
ing a much greater population than the Celestial Empire. Its 
varied interests are expanding with most astounding rapidity. 
Foreign nations look with amazement upon our inhomogenious 
yet rapidly developing interests. They can no more account for 
this harmonious prosperity in the midst of seemingly antagonistic 
and inharmonious elements, than they can account for the diurnal 
exactness of the earth’s revolutions amongst the seeming conflict 
between the laws of attraction and repulsion. 
So long as the sun of prosperity is permitted to shine on, and 
fructify the products of labor, no matter how variable, so long 
will harmony prevail amoDg the toiling masses. The truth of 
this is observable in the contrast between the happy quiet of 
prosperous times and the bread riots and mobocratic spirit that 
rule the hour of want. Have we not seen considerable of this 
within the last six weeks, even with our western granaries over¬ 
flowing, and with larders of plenty, and even luxury to their fill? 
The reason that organized deputations have within the two months 
just passed, been demanding labor at municipal headquarters, on 
pain of'mob violence, is not because we have not an abundance of 
bread, but because (for sundry reasons), that bread could not be 
sold in market in season to diffuse its returns to keep in motion 
the looms and spindles, the forges, foundries and mills of the 
country. I do not suppose that all this stoppage is a want of 
