REPORT OF EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE. 
77 
wealth. This should not be so, and we cannot rationally hope to 
attain to the rank to which we are entitled, as an agricultural 
community, until this radical error is corrected. 
THE WANTS OF THE MINING INTEREST, 
As already suggested under the head of “ Mining,” are chiefly 
those of information,—derivable only through a more thorough 
exploration and survey of the mines,—of capital for their 
economical working and the manufacture of their products, 
and of a system of scientific and statistical records for use in 
the mines and for publication in permanent form by the State. 
THE MANUFACTURING INTEREST 
Needs, above all things else, a recognition, on the part of the 
State, of its great importance as a branch of our industry. 
Wisconsin has, again and again, been styled pre-eminently ag¬ 
ricultural ; and so it is. But it is none the less true, that it may 
become a manufacturing State. Indeed there is scarcely a 
State in the Union which possesses superior natural advanta¬ 
ges in this respect. 
As before remarked, we have immense stores of mineral — 
lead, iron, zinc and copper — susceptible of the most economi¬ 
cal mining and preparation for manufacture. In many districts 
there are almost inexhaustible supplies of timber of the best 
quality and of the varieties mostly required in the arts. Our 
soils are adapted to the growth of flax and other staples used 
in the manufacture of cloth, cordage, &c. ? and to the supply of 
an immense home demand, with a large surplus for exportation 
to other States and foreign countries. Nature has provided us 
moreover, with any amount of the most available water power. 
And finally, our State, surrounded on all sides but one by 
great navigable waters, is at the same time, to a very unusual 
extent, supplied with natural internal channels for the easy 
transportation of all the products of Agriculture, the Mining 
and the Mechanic Arts to those great boundary waters which 
directly connect us with all the markets of the new and old 
world. 
What more could providence do for us than has been done ! 
