strong plea for ship subsidies, to which the congress did not make a favorable response, however. Mr. Thurber said: "It is an anomaly that we should be willing to spend $40,000,000 a year on a navy, and balk at spending $10,000,000 a year in building up a merchant marine that will make our navy effective. The nation demands an isthmian canal, but what is the use of building a canal unless we have a merchant marine to use it?" He also approved the suggestion of the Hon. O. P. Austin that a floating exposition should be organized, using some of the army transports, the services of which will not be longer required, and with the cooperation of our manufacturers show samples of our wares in the principal ports of the world.

In the discussion of this paper, Hon. William D. Hoard, of Wisconsin, said he believed the danger from trusts had been exaggerated by the public, and that, while trusts should probably be regulated, the people had less to fear from the trusts than the owners of trust stocks had to fear from depreciation of those stocks. He pointed out the effect that enhanced price has in lessening consumption.

On the second day a very interesting paper on The Rice Industry: Its Relation to Other Industries, prepared by Mr. J. B. Foley, of Louisiana, one of the largest rice-planters of that State, was read by Col. Edward W. Wickey, of Mississippi, who made valuable and interesting comments. Mr. Foley pointed out that the rice district of southwest Louisiana is a beautiful level prairie, marked by winding rivers and bayous. The rice area has been circumscribed only by the ability to irrigate. The rice industry of that section has been developed largely by Northern people and capital. No other equal agricultural area in the United States compares with the rice district as a consumer of the products of other sections of the country. It is a one-crop region. The rice belt buys very nearly all its food for man and beast. It spends every year many thousands of dollars for machinery, which comes from the North. The rice industry of southwest Louisiana is one of the "infant industries," and while the home product at present supplies only about three-fifths of the home demand, the rice-growers of the United States will soon need all our home market. The high price of rice to the consumer is due to the cost of retailing it. For a rice that the mills get for four cents a pound, the consumer pays eight to ten cents a pound. If grocers would sell rice on the margin on which they sell sugar, it would be a cheap food. Some rice-growers make large profits, and some none at all.

This was followed by an able paper on The Nicaragua Canal: Its Importance to Farmers, by the Hon. Harvie Jordan, of Georgia. He quoted Prof. Emory R. Johnson to the effect that the result of the building of the canal on railway rates would be offset by the expansion of the whole traffic handled. He said: The time is not far distant when the rapid development of our industries, the expansion of trade both at home and abroad, will require not alone the services of our present railways and the canal, but we shall need more railways and ships to meet the requirements of our country. The building of this canal is a great national necessity. Its construction would change the geographical position of our commerce on the high seas. We should be brought into direct trade relations with the Asiatic nations, whose 500,000.000 people stand ready and willing to buy our cotton, grain, meat, and other commodities. Millions of tons of freight from the West and the South would soon

find new markets at a minimum cost of water rates for freight, which would leave to the producer and manufacturer a better margin of profit on all commodities intended for export."

The afternoon session was devoted to a discussion of oleomargarine and other butter substitutes and proposed legislation affecting them. The discussion was opened by an exhaustive and carefully prepared paper by Charles Y. Knight, of Illinois, secretary of the National Dairy Union. He asserted that oleomargarine is a fraud wherever sold, and that its fraud is admitted by its makers; that only 50 cents' worth of fat is used in the manufacture of oleomargarine from each head of cattle killed, and that only 1 per cent. of the cottonseed-oil product is used in the manufacture of oleomargarine; that the people themselves do not demand oleomargarine, do not want it, and that it can be sold to them in any considerable quantity only through deception; that not all the oils used in its manufacture are made from clean fats; that it is not the equal of butter in digestibility or nutritiousness, and is positively unwholesome; and that as coloring it in imitation of butter is done only to sell it as butter, such fraudulent coloring should be subjected to a prohibitive penalty.

Opposing views were advanced by the Hon. J. Sterling Morton,. of Nebraska, ex-Secretary of Agriculture, in a very skilful argument. He interestingly told of the development of the manufacture of paper from a part of the corn-stalk. He exhibited samples of paper in various forms, from newspaper to paper board, made from a part of the corn-stalk previously wasted. He then asked if the manufacturers of paper from the materials formerly used should be allowed to compel by law the manufacturers of paper from cornstalk fiber to color it in such manner that it could not compete with paper made from wood-pulp, etc., though the paper made from corn-stalk was just as good, and sold for a less price. He contended that compelling the manufacturers of paper from corn-stalk fiber to color their paper in such a way as to prevent its competition with other paper was a parallel to the legislation asked for by the dairymen, to compel the manufacturers of oleomargarine to color their product pink, or else subject it to a prohibitive tax. He also contended that the National Government had the constitutional right to tax only to raise revenue, etc., and not in order to prohibit the manufacture of a product.

His argument was vigorously combated by the Hon. William D. Hoard, of Wisconsin, president of the National Dairy Union. He contended that the basis of the traffic in oleomargarine is deception, that it is selling one product for another. The manufacturers of oleomargarine bought the merchants to violate the laws." It is a question that strikes into the integrity of society," he said, "when men will go before Congress with the claims the oleomargarine men present." pointed out the difference between coloring butter and oleomargarine-butter is colored to conform to the taste of the consumer, oleomargarine is colored to deceive the consumer.

He

At the evening session Prof. E. Benjamin Andrews, Chancellor of the University of Nebraska, spoke on The Farmstead Beautiful. "Scientific farming has now put it within the reach of nearly all to have good reading-matter, and to indulge in travel; and the telephone and the trolley-car have done much to add interest to life on the farm." Trees and hedges temper the climate and add to the beauty of the farm. "Have your home lot square, with lawn all around it. The beauty of a

lawn is when the whole expanse of green may be seen at a single glance, not cut up by flower-beds or trees. In the house have no carpets. No room is too good in your house for your own use. Don't live in the kitchen. That is vulgarizing. Have a few good pictures."

At the morning session of the third day Dr. J. W. Heston, president of South Dakota Agricultural College, read a paper on The Farmer's Opportunity, which was a plea for irrigating the arable lands of the semiarid region by the National Government. "Individual enterprise has done all it can. Of the $6,000,000 spent on irrigation, $5,000,000 were private funds. The States can not do it. Irrigation is not new; it is a demonstrated success. The irrigated land would have a value much in excess of the cost."

The discussion that followed this paper made it certain that a large majority of the congress was opposed to any irrigation enterprise by the National Government.

Other papers read were on Ancient American Forests, by John P. Brown, of Indiana; one by Prof. H. W. Campbell, of Kansas, in which he advocated, for the semiarid West, the shallow cultivation and fine-earth mulch that he has done so much to popularize among farmers, and that has proved to be valuable to conserve moisture in regions outside the semiarid belt; and a paper on Aspects of our Sheep Industry, prepared by Hon. J. R. Dodge, of Washington. He said: The assertion that the pastoral resources and feeding capacity of the country are in danger of exhaustion is simply absurd. Our agriculture is still in a primitive condition. Even in some of our seaboard States there is more wild land than farm area, and much uncultivated land in farms. The competition of cotton with wool is legitimate, but the skilful mixture of cotton with wool for the fraudulent purpose of facilitating sales of the hybrid fabric as pure wool, is obviously reprehensible. The Dingley law was the salvation of both branches of the wool interests in one of the critical periods that threatened the destruction of both industries-the production and the manufacture of wool. That the present tariff is no bar to importation of clothing and combing wools is shown by the average imports for three years past of 33,777,894 pounds per annum. Our varied climates, soils, grasses and forage plants, and pastoral experience can produce almost any class of wool that the caprice of fashion or the competition of textile manufacture may require."

At the evening session Mrs. Bertha Dahl Laws, of Minnesota, gave an interesting lecture on The American Girl in the Home. Her main thought was that home-making is and should be the highest ambition of the American girl. The American girl of to-day is the home-maker of the future. All mothers should see that their daughters are taught the duties of wifehood and motherhood. "Domestic economy should be taught in the public schools. Housekeeping and home-making is a most delightful occupation if one will only make it so. It is drudgery only to those that make it drudgery. We should make full use of light, water, air, and rest. We do not rest enough.'

She was followed by Mr. M. F. Greeley, editor of the Dakota Farmer, in a strong plea to young men to endeavor to own land, though only a little. Land ownership gave an independence and feeling of responsibility that nothing else did. Land was becoming scarce, and would be a good investment from the money standpoint. Land ownership made good citizenship. The farm home was selfsustaining. The city home required a constant ex

penditure. Too often the farm was not credited with the supplies it furnished the family. The girl that could prepare a good meal and could preside at the table with grace, and was a good housekeeper, was not lacking in education, might be better educated than the graduate of a college.

Officers were elected to serve for two years, as follow: President, Hon. George L. Flanders, of Albany, N. Y.; first vice-president, Hon. Harvie Jordan, of Monticello, Ga.; second vice-president, Col. B. Cameron, of Stagville, N. C.; secretary, John M. Stahl, of Chicago, Ill.; first assistant secretary, E. A. Callahan, of Albany, N. Y.; second assistant secretary, Hon. George M. Whitaker, of Boston, Mass.; third assistant secretary, Joel M. Roberts, of Waco, Neb.; treasurer, Hon. J. H. Reynolds, of Adrian, Mich.; executive committee, the president and secretary ex-officio, and Col. Benjamin F. Clayton, of Indianola, Ia.; Col. E. W. Wickey, of Ocean Springs, Miss.; and Mr. W. L. Ames, of Oregon, Wis. The State vice presidents are: Alabama, George I. Motz; Arkansas, R. R. Dinwiddie; California, D. L. Cantlin; Colorado, Farwell Bemis; Connecticut, J. H. Hale; Delaware, J. A. Whitaker; Florida, T. J. Appleyard; Georgia, Dudley M. Hughes; Idaho, W. H. Buchanan; Illinois, R. H. Kirby; Indiana, J. B. Brown; Iowa, Samuel Jones; Kansas, Thomas M. Potter; Kentucky, J. H. Alderson; Louisiana, John Dymond; Maine, Obadiah Gardner; Maryland, William M. Ámos; Massachusetts, N. Sagendorph; Michigan, Bronson Turner; Minnesota, John Cooper; Mississippi, A. L. Hutchinson; Montana, R. N. Sutherlin; Missouri, Charles K. Greene; Nebraska, L. L. Young; Nevada, S. P. Davis; New Hampshire, Joseph D. Roberts; New Jersey, Franklin Dye; New Mexico, Arthur Goetz; New York, H. S. Ambler; North Carolina, John S. Cuningham; North Dakota, S. M. Edwards; Ohio, D. L. Pope; Oklahoma, H. A. Todd; Oregon, Richard Baird; Pennsylvania, George G. Hutchinson; Rhode Island, Henry L. Greene; South Dakota, John S. Armstrong; Tennessee, J. K. P. Wallace; Texas, W. A. Rhea; Vermont, D. H. Morse; Virginia, Henry E. Alvord; West Virginia, D. Buchanan; Wisconsin, E. M. Anderson; Wyoming, E. L. Ramsey.

GEORGE L. FLANDERS, PRESIDENT OF FARMERS' NATIONAL CONGRESS.

The following resolutions were adopted:

"Whereas, The rapid expansion of agricultural production, manufacturing industries, and commercial trade generally in the United States is growing beyond the demands of present markets, both at home and abroad; and

"Whereas, It is deemed of vital importance to cultivate better trade relations with the Central and South American republics and the Asiatic nations; and

"Whereas, The Government of the United States is committed to the enforcement, and will