EXHIBITION—ANNUAL ADDRESSES. 
143 
manufactured in Eacine, or others manufactured still further 
east, pays eighty or ninety dollars freight on his machine be¬ 
sides profits and the cost of the machine. This want of manu¬ 
facturing enterprises drains the country of vast sums of money. 
On the great prairies of Illinois, where some of the finest 
grazing grounds in the world are met with, the people eat 
largely of the cattle driven from Texas and intermediate states, 
while by the aid of a boy and an Indian pony, a vast herd of 
cattle could be fed and fatted on the prairies of Illinois, and on 
the hay cut therefrom. 
Much of our cheese comes from Orange county, Hew York, 
and the Western Eeserve of Ohio. This is an abominable state 
of things. 
Something was said yesterday by Governor Seymour about 
the distaste of our people for agricultural pursuits. It was 
well said, and I will allude to one or two causes of this condi¬ 
tion of things. Among the causes is the fact that the luxuries 
and comforts, and even the necessaries of life are so deficiently 
provided in the country. Eide through the state and look at 
the ordinary country homes. Where is the wonder that girls 
raised in them are anxious to flee to the city, or cotton manu¬ 
factories of the east ? Where is the wonder that the young 
man will take his departure from them for the city, for the 
counting room, the lawyer’s, or doctor’s office ? See as you 
ride through the country, here, there, and almost everywhere, a 
one-story or a story and a half house with one or two windows in 
a side or end, a chimney in the middle, with no hall, no pleas¬ 
ant verandas, no parlors, scantily furnished, hardly any books, 
no pictures, no attention paid to taste or comfort, destitute of 
a flower garden, and where shade trees are the exception and not 
the rule, many of them standing on the bald open prairie where 
they were built twenty years ago, not a tree in sight, unless 
located by a pond or river accidentally. Ho wonder there is a 
distaste for agriculture where such a state of things exists. If 
you could go and examine the rural condition of the people in 
England, you would see why it is considered so very desirable 
and more honorable to leave the city and go to the country. 
