Grant County herald. [volume] (Lancaster, Wis.) 1850-1968, 1877-10-11
AGRICULTURAL TALK.
Some Distinguished Politicians Have q Little
Talk with the Grangers.

Come Distinguished Politicians Have q Little
| Talk with the Grangers.
Extract from Speech by Hon. Roscoe conkling. OF
| N.Y.. at the Lewis County Pair
| Senator Conkling and ex-Gov.
Seymour visited the Lewis county
fair, in Lowville, N. Y. They were
introduced to large audience, and
were enthusiastically received. Sem
ator Conkling spoke as follows:
One thought is suggested by this
occasion, which you will let me pre-
sent. I mean the advantages of agri-
culture in America over every other
country on the globe. In nearly
every land but this cultivating the soil
begins and ends with an effort to
make the country yield food enough
for the people who live IN it. In most
countries even this cannot be done.
Many of the nations are consumers,
compelled to buy breadstuffs from
others. In one country only besides
this can agriculture ever be an exter-
nal commercial industry, and in no
country can it be SO fully as it is here
the commanding and ruling interest
The sources and elements of wealth
everywhere, in all time, are few. and
can be easily pointed out. In no
country can wealth ever be created
by slight of hand, or in any way save
only by labor. 1t can never be cre-
ated by political parties. or by legisla-
ton. All that laws can do is to help
or hinder in its work.
In every age and in every land
property is and must be the product
of human toll. 1t must be plowed
out of the forest, wrought out of the
loom, pounded out on the anvil. Pro.
duction lies at the bottom OF all COM
MERGE and traffic. Look at our coun-
try and see where our greatest re-
source and treasure les. 1t is not
mineral wealth; yet we have mines
rich in the precious metals. and richer
yet, vast mines of the king of metals,
iron. We have coal-felds exhaustless
and unsurpassed in the fuel they pro-
duce. We have. timber in abundance,
and of great variety. But any one OF
these does not, nor do all of them put
together, represent the one great
strength and advantage of our coun-
try.-They are all secondary when
compared with something else. The
broadcast, strongest, most enduring
basis of our prosperity as a nation
and of our individual wealth is the
soil. Our greatest possession and
profit is and is to be the outcome OF
the earth. Here is our one great ad.
vantage over every other people. No
other nation has such a domain in the
temperate zone in different ATTITUDES
adapted to producing all the great
staples, from wheat to sugar cane and
rice.
From sea to sea, extending from
north and south nearly two thous.
and miles, we have continent of
wonderful fertility. In it's midst, to
be sure, is rainless region; but even
this, as has been shown in Utah, can
by irrigation be turned into gar
den. Mr.. Webster spoke of Califor-
MIA thirty years ago as volcanic
desert, and now the fiocks and the
wheat fields of California are among
the wonders of our times. Most of
our soil asks little of the hand of
man. 1t needs only to be tick
led with q hoe to laugh with a
harvest. Spread out the map and
see the primary this gives us among
the nations of tho earth. We can
feed the world, and this fact makes
agriculture not only our leading in
terest and pursuit, but it makes
| American agriculture leading inter-
est of all Christendom. One way to
realize this is to go out of this broad,
green land and see the cramped and
oircumscribed countries in which
other nations are crowded and pent
up.
1t may not be safe for me to say
much about this. Having made q
hasty visit to other lands during the
summer, / have been scolded round
| ly for not having found more to
envy. A man who goes abroad and
comes baf k Impressed with the maj
esty aud growth of his own country
and better satisfied with it, seems to
be altogether out of fashion with a
class OF very intelligent and superior
beings. Ii is deemed by some per-
sons evidence OF broad views and ad-
vanced culture, and refinement, and
even morality, to libel their own
country and it's people and institu-
tons. it is thought quite large and
fine to hunt out and magnify and
dwell upon the deficiencies and short
comings, real and imagined, of the
American people and blazon them to
the world, and then to fall down in
admiration before the grand people
and grand things of other countries.
People will differ about this. There
are spots on the sun, but If our sun is
more spotted than some other suns
my eyes greatly deceive me.
| However this may be, the geogra-
ply of the well known parts of the
earth we may all agree on. All
France is only four-fifths the size OF
the single state of Texas. France
has 36,000,O00 people, or 1777 PEG.
| pie to the square mile. One half OF
them are sgriculturisls. England is
about the size of the state OF New
York. Her ability to feed her own
people is shown in letter from an
American writing from England,
whose figures apparently stated with
accuracy appear in the Albany Ere
ming Journal of last evening. he
says: zs.eis
The British food upply comes