78 
STATE AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY. 
what clearer indication give of our destiny as a State and of 
the means to be employed for the fulfillment of that destiny ? 
A people may live and flourish on Agriculture alone ; even 
though a large proportion of the products of the soil must be 
shipped to distant markets ; instances are not wanting to prove 
this. But it is nevertheless demonstrable that a home market 
for such products is more desirable, and that a country so rich 
in the economical minerals and timbers must find it more pro¬ 
fitable, so long as the means are at hand, to do its own manu¬ 
facturing and thus save to itself not only the profits on the 
business of manufacture, but likewise that dead loss which now 
comes of the transportation of much useless material and the 
re-transportation of the manufactured article from distant por¬ 
tions of the country for the use of its now merely agricultural, 
mining and lumbering population. 
Millions of dollars are lost every year to the farmers of Wis¬ 
consin by their remoteness from the great grain markets. 
They work like heroes to produce their immense crops of wheat 
and then practically give to ship owners and transportation 
companies three-fourths — if not, indeed, a larger proportion 
— of all the profits of their toil. But this is not all: after 
selling their wheat for less than it cost, they then buy back of 
Eastern manufacturers, their cloths, leathers, hardware, paints, 
oils, &c., &c., at a price including cost of manufacture, profits 
on handling by the wholesale dealer, cost of and profits on 
transportation, and lastly the profits of the retailer at home. 
What they need, therefore, is that New Y r ork be brought to 
their doors; and this to a considerable extent, can be practi¬ 
cally accomplished by the establishment of factories where wool, 
flax, flax-seed, hemp, &c., could find a market; where a large 
amount of the breadstuffs now exported might be sold for con¬ 
sumption by the operators, their families and the large popula¬ 
tion which would naturally cluster about extensive manufactur¬ 
ing establishments, (and which, as time advances, would make 
large and flourishing villages and cities in the manufacturing 
districts,) where also many of the substantial articles essential 
