162 Wisconsin State Agricultural Society. 
Farm-life is, and must continue to be, a life of industry and labor, 
but make it not a life of drudgery and slavery. Be the intelligent 
masters of your farms not their servants or their slaves? Let us 
hush all murmurings of discontent, and prepare ourselves one and 
all as speedily as possible to take our places where we should ever 
have stood, in the very front rank of our nation’s progress, and not 
in its rear. Let us so fit ourselves to lead in the world’s battle of 
life and progress, that those who come after us may be the better 
and happier for our efforts. The front rank is yours by birthright 
and by inheritance. It has been lost by carelessness, incompetency * 
and ignorance; it may be regained b} r concentrated efforts and per¬ 
severing industry, directed by energetic and educated farmers who 
know their rights, and knowing will maintain them. 
Mr.' Benton: The paper we have just listened to has indicated 
various directions in which we should travel to secure success, but 
it seems to me it lacks the essential quality that our president indi¬ 
cated in his opening remarks, for it has not shown us howto travel 
the road successfully except by some general principles. Those 
principles are right, but it is the specific direction we want. Now, 
preliminary to other remarks, I would state that he suggested the 
idea of selling our flour directly to eastern consumers. 
Here are the difficulties. First, we run our own risks in the ship¬ 
ping of our products to the east. As shippers upon the railroads, 
all the responsibility, loss, delay, and damage upon the route are 
thrown upon the owner, upon the consignor. They also combine 
at the other end of the route to lay all the hindrances they can 
upon the market. For instance, in the city of New York, a combina¬ 
tion took place in the chamber of commerce, among the dealers in 
that city, to this effect, that they would purchase in open market 
no grain coming to them unless through an elevator or ware-house 
receipt. Western men, finding the ware-house charges so large, 
had commenced shipping in bulk at their own risk to New York, 
to be sold. These men on ascertaining this fact, refused to purchase 
grain standing in the cars on the track. What are you going to 
do about it? They won’t buy it unless you put it in their elevator. 
Here is an unsurmountable obstacle; practically we cannot over¬ 
ride these difficulties; we cannot surmount them individually. For 
instance, if I wish to ship a thousand bushels of wheat to New 
