and work for farmers, and labor with farmers, and not be so cussed jealous of an honest farmer, then you are all right and have a right to speak in a convention of farmers.

J. N. Ames-Would it not be well for this convention to pass resolutions requesting our legislature to pass a law that no man should hold a position under this state government that was found riding on a railroad pass?

A. A. Arnold, Galesville-I presume if we investigated that matter, we would find railroad passes in the pockets of most all the legislators we have in the state, and perhaps most of the legislators we have in the United States.

Mr. Sloan referred to my paper in this regard. The paper was on through transportation, and not necessarily interfering particularly with the Wisconsin railroads. I said we had but little complaint to make of our railroads, comparatively. They are well managed in this state; not a man killed on the railroads in this state this year. The charges perhaps are high; the ministers are riding on half-fare passes, and they are but little troubled; and the legislators also; but the main thing I desired to embrace in this paper was this:

Law is a rule of action; law is the result of crystalized public sentiment, also, and we may have no law, but if we have, it amounts to no law; it cannot be enforced unless by virtue of this crystalized public sentiment, and for this reason I dwelt upon the subject in the informal, incomplete way in which I handled the matter in my paper.

Being only a farmer, of course I should not be posted on this question as a railroad man would be. I am not capable of handling it, but I believe the law is plain, and every man that reads can read as he runs, almost, and understand it.

H. Robbins, Platteville - These papers are so excellent I don't see anything to pitch into, and I am never happy unless there is something to pitch into.

I wish to make a remark in regard to the owners of these roads. They have common stock that has no interest in the roads. A man that has common stock has no interest in the road. The common stock costs hardly anything. The man that owns pre

9-W. S. A. S.

ferred stock has been paid two or three times over. Now the question is, what moried interest, in money, have the men that are controlling these roads? That is the question.

There is a road of only two miles in length which I have investigated some. That is a very short road. Their capi al stock is a hundred thousand dollars, and they have been running it four or five years. They receive at any rate over fifty thousand dol lars a year gross earnings and the net earnings are some twentyfive thousand dollars. Now I would like to know what interest those men have that built that road. A monied interest. Haven't the public paid for that road more than once? Now wou'd it do any injustice, providing you should lower the freight or increase the taxes?

Taxes don't amount to anything, only about a thousand dollars on a hundred thousand,- a little over a thousand dollars a year is all they pay. Last year one thousand and eight dollars, I think, on one hundred thousand dollars in this state. Now look over the roads in Wisconsin and you will find that that is about a fair sample. You will find that the men who are controlling these r ads have no interest in them. The bonds on the road have an absolute interest in the road as far as bonds go, but the common stock did not cost anything, and my friend Mr. Field knows very well that when we were in the legislature, there was a bill got through allowing the stock of certain corp ›rations to vote, and that that stock cost not to exceed five cents on the dollar, and they cleaned out one railroad company entirely. Why? Because the common stock was allowed to vote, and a gentleman of this city paid five thousand dollars to get that bill through the legislature, and I voted for it and did not know it. (Laughter.) It is a fact. That is the way our legislation was done some years ago.

I have been looking over the report of the commissioner and I got some wonderful information from that report. I would like to have some of you look it over.

I find that there are counties, and one in particular, in the state of Wisconsin that takes more out of the treasury every year than it puts into it. Why? On account of a bill that was got through

here year before last. It is an unconstitutional bill. There is not a lawyer in this state, I will bet, who will examine that law, but what will say it is unconstitutional. It provided on account of ten years' exemptions that it shall pay five per cent. on gross earnings, and where is that to go to? It is to go to the counties where the land lies. One of those counties got last year two thousand dollars, and their whole state tax was only a little over one thousand. Now I want you to look into it and see the kind of legislation they are getting here now.

Men can get I do not care what kind of legislation they want they can get it. If they can't get it in one shape, they can get it in another. That is all I have to say on this subject.

These papers suit me, so I am not going to pitch into them, but I want you to investigate a little further and see how our railroads. in Wisconsin are managed. That road I have reference to runs across the Wisconsin river. It is the McGregor road. Examine it thoroughly and you will find that their capital stock is a hundred thousand dollars! Their gross earnings last year were fifty thousand dollars; their net earnings twenty-five thousand dollars, and what interest have they now in that road when the public have paid for it twice over? That is the question I ask.

R. P. Main, Oregon - The railroad system has been so recently introduced into the United States that the true relation between these corporations and the people is not generally understood. Our courts of last resort, with the high courts of all nations, have declared railroads public highways, and those who operate them common carriers. But these decisions have escaped the notice of the masses entirely.

The venal and unscrupulous class of men who have engaged in these railroad enterprises, seeing themselves far in advance of pub. lic sentiment, have resorted to every means known to base humanity to accumulate fabulous fortunes for the few, at the expense of the many. Through their pass system, these corporations have bribed all our officials, from the president of the United States to the lowest half-breed who represents an assembly district on our frontier. They use almost the entire newspaper press to whitewash and pettifog their unholy and murderous acts. They have

hushed the voice of our religious press, and closed the mouths of our p eachers of the gospel, so that they violate the Sibbath by running their freight trains on Sunday, without a protest from those holy men who stand upon the walls of Zion to protect the religion of Jesus Christ.

Last November when it was discovered that navigation on our lakes would close several weeks sooner than usual, and that a large amount of wheat was in the hands of the producers, a few of our railroad kings met and agreed to raise the freight from Chicago to the seaboard five cents per hundred pounds. While these companies were making millions more than they had ever in one year made before, they still made this addition, which reduces the value of the crop to the producers $42 000,000. For this outrage no excu-e is offe ed except that the traffic will breast it. This transportation question is a question great and overshadowing, but under the manipulation of these corporations, it becomes a monster of frightful mien, of giant proportions. But this beast must be met and throttled, or our government, which was intended to be an asylum for the oppressed of all nations, will soon become a procurer for the rich and a machine to grind the laborer to earth and make him a starving beggar. These roads were bui't under that c'ause of our constitution which allows private property to be taken for public use by paying the owner thereof a just compensation. By some unexplained process, unknown to law or lawyers, this pub'ic property has all of a sudden become the private property of these corporations, to be used to crush production in every way the evil heart can devise or base man dare execute. Farmers, I call on you to assert your rights, for it is truly said, I be'ieve, that G d made the world and the Devil made the cities," and these cities, true to the instincts of their great founder, live and riot upon contributions wrung from your toil.

Among all nations the agriculturists are the great patriarchs of the human family, and their sons and daughters must teach the rising generations to love and prize freedom, or despotism reigns and liberty perishes.

To day the Goddess of Liberty in these United States, with

uplifted hands, stands upon the brink of destruction, appealing to the tillers of the soil for assistance and protection from her great imperial, foe.

Sons of freedom, will you heed her signal of distress and rush to the rescue of the noblest government ever by man established?

TUESDAY, February 1, 1881.

Convention met at 9 o'clock A. M.

President Fratt in the chair, who introduce to the convention. J. C. Arthur, a teacher at the State University, who spoke as follows:

Gentlemen-If you should take an infusion of hay or any such substance, and put a drop of it under the microscope, what you would see in the greatest abundance would be the common forms of bacteria. Uuder the microscope they look like little luminous dots. Hg cholera and some of those diseases are due to bacteria. They multiply by cutting them-elves in two in the middle, and to such an extent as to produce fever, inflammation and finally to kill the animal. They are so light that they float in the air quite readily, and more than that, they produce little spores which will resist the effect of drying and beating, etc., for a very long time, and they float about in the air in great quantities. They come in contact with the animal by breathing, and produce some forms of disease, but some kinds of spores do not do any harm in that way. The way they are got into the system the surest and easiest is through some cut or sore, but a very common way is by the animal eating some rough material, something perhaps having thistles in it. Those lacerate and irritate the throat and make small openings into the throat or back part of the mouth. Then these bacteria are breathed in and strike on these openings and are taken right into the blood. That is a very common way of communicating disease. The Texas cattle disease is easily communicated in that way. It is the very small bacteria that have to do with diseases. (Charts were exhibited by the Professor illustrating the classification, forms and structure of fungi.)