is 
WISCONSIN STATE AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY. 
is the magnetism of power and influence, and that wealth can be 
had by labor and interchange of products with other peoples— 
and give them the means to test the truth of the philosophy, and 
even the indolent and improvident heathen of the equatorial lim¬ 
its would, in time, become a good Western Granger, having do¬ 
minion over the plow, or one of the monitarv beasts that luxuri¬ 
ate in the civilization of Wall street, and instead of dickering in a 
few pounds of elephant’s tusks per annum for beads and red flan¬ 
nel, they might, like our own knights of the “almighty dollar,” 
collect their gains by the millions, in the buying and selling rain 
water and “ cheek ” in solution with railway securities 1 Trace over 
the geographical limits of the world, and the fact is patent that 
those nations that have encouraged little or no means of intercom¬ 
munication (like Mexico and some of the Central and South Ameri¬ 
can states) are rent into factious guerilla bands, the contempt of 
other nations—the prey of all rival adventurers—the foot-ball, the 
shuttle-cock and battle-door of piratical freebooters. I never heard 
of but one valid reason (not to say it was sufficient) for the gov¬ 
ernment showering so freely its subsidies on the Pacific Railway, 
and that was, that without free and easy means of intercommuni¬ 
cation, our Pacific possessions could not be kept within the Union 
except by the power of bayonets. On this point I never knew 
issue to be taken, and even old “ strict constructionists ” for the 
time waived their objections to subsidies for that road, since it 
was conceded the only means to unite and cement the Atlantic 
and Pacific states. But let us turn from analogies to practical 
facts. 
From the report of the Hon. Wm. J. McAlpine to the Hew 
York legislature; in 1853, I learn that some 3,200 miles of canals- 
had been built in the United States at a cost of $100,000,000, and 
77 1-2 miles in Canada, at a cost of $13,500,000. These canals 
average from 40 to 120 feet surface width, and from 4 to 10 feet 
in depth; with locks from 75 to 200 feet in length, and from 15 
to 50 feet in width. The greatest lift in feet is that of the James 
River and Kanawha Canal, 1,916. The tonnage ranges from 20 
to 500. 
