duce as much food as an equal amount of good land; and superior kinds of fish can be selected and a given number produced, just as you raise domestic animals; for fish are remarkably susceptible of domestication.

The natural supply of fish diminishes just in proportion as the country becomes settled. Insects, on the other hand, increase just in proportion to the cultivation of the soil. The Colorado potato beetle will illustrate this proposition. Until a few years ago

but few entomologists had ever seen this beetle, and were not able to procure specimens for their cabinets. I collected insects in Wisconsin eighteen years before I saw a specimen of the Chrysomela 10 lineata. Would that that those years might again

return.

If an invading army were to overrun the state and trample down and destroy crops and fruits to the same extent that the hosts of insects do every year, every man would fly to the rescue and the invading foe would be exterminated. Is it not strange how quietly we look on, with folded arms and see the work go on that will cost the producers millions of dollars? Wisconsin should have an entomologist to study the nature of the insects and the best mode for their extermination, and a fish commission to see that our beautiful waters are stocked with the best varieties of fish.

Secretary Field asked whether, in his opinion, the inland lakes of Wisconsin could be successfully stocked with the salmon trout and other choice varieties of fish.

Dr. Hoy said that he believed it to be entirely practical.

Secretary Field said, will not the fresh water shark—the pickerel -destroy them in such numbers that their successful propagation would be impossible?

Dr. Hoy said that many would be eaten by this rapacious pickerel, but that a large supply could nevertheless be obtained, and this difficulty overcome.

THE DUTY OF WISCONSIN FARMERS.

BY CLINTON BABBITT, ESQ., HEMDOKA FARM, BELOIT.

Ladies and Gentlemen: Well may we indulge love and pride for our noble state. Her scenery unsurpassed, over which our eye is accustomed to range; her vast lakes--inland seas-sufficient to float an empire's commerce; her majestic rivers and trackless forests-all inspire devotion and patriotism. Beneath our very feet are inexhaustible mines of lead, copper and iron, and an arable soil not surpassed by any portion of the civilized globe. This to us is the dearest spot of earth, for it is home. Here, for many years, we have lived; and here, too, at last, we hope to sleep in peace. In answer to the call of the heart, come up to us from the past endearing memories. But in order to understand

OUR DOUBLE OBLIGATION TO STATE AND NATION

in the light of a broader and more refined culture, we must remember that the United States is our country, and its highest titled knighthood the appellation of American farmer. Citizenship entitles to protection. It also demands unyielding obligations. We cannot shrink from the responsibilities it imposes. If we have bad laws to govern us, we cannot say we are guiltless. If oppression grinds, we cannot say we might not have checked the power that warmed it into life. This gathering indicates that Wisconsin farmers are awaking to their duty. Thought and reflection are demanded by the times. Concert of action and thorough organization, will surely achieve the results for which we labor. We complain of oppressive and bad laws. We mean repeal, we mean reform. It is our duty to demand from our public servants at Washington, and our legislature at home, a fair representation of our sentiments and opinions. Economy must be adhered to in the disbursement of public money.

TAXATION SHALL BE LESS BURDENSOME,

and government throughout its various branches less expensive.

Money is raised by indirect taxation, and for every million put into the national treasury, two more are lost through improper tariff laws, expended on tax gatherers and protected monopolies of various kinds.

We must demand that the laws imposing heavy duties on what we require for daily use, or must have for national development and improvement, enabling us to belt the land with iron bands that aid in creating cheap freights and easy transit, be repealed.

We have a right to demand an honest profit on capital invested when we come to sell the products of the farm; and to demand, also, payment for them in money-a currency at par in any portion of the world.

Is is our duty to enforce public justice, if need be, by an irresistible concert of action, through the influence of a thorough political organization pledged to excute the will of its constituents.

I am aware the prevailing disposition shown for the past few months has been wholesale fault-finding. The scrutinizing watchfulness indicates the overthrow of corrupt legislation. It foretells its extermination. It will cause the people to rise in their con. scious might, and enforce, even from arrant monopoly, obedience. The ballot is more powerful than the sword; and with that, the controlling power is yours. None know their strength better than the gentlemen of the granges know theirs-than you know yours, farmers and horticulturists. Oh! what a mighty change! Once you were almost slaves. Self-preservation-that law which knows no master-with one sweep of its wand, has raised from the dead, monotonous routine of daily life the toiling producer of the world's wealth, and agriculture, and the Patrons of Husbandry will, to a great degree, be responsble for future events.

The world is progressing in every department. We are marching to the front. Perfection in grains and tillage; faster time and more strength in horses; weight unequaled, with beauty and purity of blood, in Short Horns and Southdowns; art hitherto triumphant, and still to be surpassed. Manhood, universal brotherhood, is at hand. The three great lights of American civiliza

tion are burning and stand round the altar. Agriculture, manufactures and progressive knowledge blend their glorious rays to cheer the world. But history asserts the fact that

HUMAN NATURE IS APT TO OVERREACH ITSELF,

And that the oppressed in time become oppressors. Intelligence and virtue constitute the bulwark of safety. Beneath their iufluence monarchies crumble and republics thrive; intolerance and corruption, both in religion and politics, vanish forever.

Wisconsin farmers, duty demands of you such economy and such legislation as will bring to your homes a full, sound education and all its attendant blessings; for, from these quiet retreats, your homes, must come our national strength and defenders. We may then reasonably hope that reforms begun by us will be perfected and maintained by those who come after us.

I am not one of those who would willingly arry myself against railroads and all other internal improvements. These great equalizers and annihilators of distance, the means through which producer and consumer shall be brought into closer relations, must remain, be fostered, constructed where needed, curbed and controlled in a proper degree by that sovereign will which knows no superior above the constitutional rights of free men. Time, the great leveler of human opinion, will utter its decision, and the principle and policy of a liberal but honest legislation will be incorporated in the history of this country.

American farmers never can afford, nor do they desire, to be mercenary, or to adopt a policy that shall subserve their own personal interests alone. Whosoever votes for self, or party, against public and general good, is a corrupt voter; and, if you give your influence to any political movement opposed to the public welfare, I stand here to charge you with corruption.

No political party should be narrowed down to professional lines, excepting in cases of most imminent danger to national prosperity. I am sorry to admit-would I were not obliged to-that the time has come. A quarter of a century ago, all the wealth of monoplies in this country did not exceed $10,000,000. But, incalculable as it may appear, this prolific source of discord and strife has already swallowed up over $3,000,000,000 of the people's

money, and with impudence peculiar to gluttony, asks for more. Prompt action is demanded; guided always by intelligence and virtue.

SPEED ON THE GRANGE!

Speed on the Club! Speed on Reform!

"For God shall pun

ish the world for its evil, and the wicked for their iniquities. He shall cause the arrogance of the proud to cease. He shall lay low the haughtiness of the terrible: for he will make a man more precious than fine gold, even a man than the golden wedge of Ophir."

It has been my privilege to visit many of our flourishing states, among others the champion wheat-growing state, Minnesota. There I saw, by the posters of the Northern Pacific Railroad, advertising its bonds, that their value was predicated on a grant containing more land than is contained in the whole of the New England states, with Maryland added, and this immense domain is free from taxation until disposed of by the railroad company. I also visited the best portions of land on the Minnesota line of the St. Paul and Pacific, with its land-grant of twenty miles in width, and became intimate with many of the farmers who had purchased on time, expecting to make that fair land their home. Many indeed were the cases-not the exceptions by any means-where, after repeated efforts to meet the obligations to the railroad, and the taxes incident to new countries, they were at last compelled to abandon their claims and turn their faces toward the setting sun. Under such disadvantages, what is true of one place is true of nearly all. Now, if there is a class on earth who ought to be befriended and not crippled by government, it is the actual settler on the frontier who takes his life in his hand, faces mercenary savage and rigorous climate, and converts wilderness and desolation into independent states; who, with courage, power, and might of manhood, bids farewell to the things that are behind, and presses forward his country's destiny. I submit, is not his claim far superior to that of a railroad company which builds roads where they are not needed, but whenever and wherever it can get good land without paying for it?

Revolutions never go backward. Duty of more than ordinary