forget to come back. They adjourn once every week from Friday until Monday night. Why cannot they adjourn to Tuesday morning? Because neither house can under the law adjourn over three days without the consent of the other.

Mr. Field-They used to be just as bad when we were there. Mr. Robbins - They used to be just as bad when we were there, but we are not there now, and it is easier to point out the errors of others than our own. But if I was in the legislature this winter I would try to remedy the law so that every species of property should pay for its protection. I would not grumble at the extravagance of our institutions, if every species of property that was protected was made to pay taxes. I think our normal schools and the State University should be taxed. You may ask me upon what principle? Because they are not state institutions. I believe that the property which the state owns should be free from taxes; but where there is an institution that the state has not entire control of they should pay taxes, and they can af ford to, because they have thousands and thousands of dollars in the treasury to-day. Take the agricultural fund and the college and the university and they have all got funds in the treasury to day. Two hundred and forty thousand dollars, the agricultural fund, is paid to the university on account of having the agricultural department attached to it. Do they expect us to send our boys up there to learn those hard names? (Referring to charts exhibited by Prof. Arthur in illustration of the lecture on "Fungoid Growth.") No, sir, they cannot expect any such thing.

A gentleman asked, how shall we keep our boys at home. I tell you farms in this state are not paying one per cent. on the capital invested in them. You cannot expect a boy to go into any business that will not pay over one per cent. I know men are making so much from the creamery and butter business, and I am making so much selling cattle. But do we raise them ourselves? No sir, we get a portion of our profit off from labor that does not pay. I am going to buy up some steers for two and one-half cents a pound. I would like to know how that man can afford to raise them. I can buy plenty of them in the county in which I live for two and one-half cents a pound, and I

know that no farmer in the state can afford to raise them for that. They are the men that lose. I can take them perhaps and make money on, them, but farming does not pay. Now I want the gentlemen of the legislature to look over the counties of the state and see if any of them do not pay any state tax. There is one county, Barron county, that takes more money out of the state treasury than it puts in, and I see that the superintendent says they pay one per cent., which is the highest school tax of any county in the state. I do not suppose they can get it exactly equal, but I would like to have the committee upon the assessment and collection of taxes see if they cannot devise some means by which all property that is protected shall bear its just proportion of taxes. I am in favor of the bill that Senator Anderson has introduced-lawyers may say it is unconstitutional, but I say it is constitutional-that a man that borrows money shall pay the taxes and then it shall be taken out of the interest, or in other words, that the mortgage itself is a part of the property. Why should not the mortgage pay taxes as well as the property?

If any one says that is unconstitutional, I say that our railroad tax is unconstitutional. Suppose some of these big companies that pay $200,000 should refuse to pay a dollar; do you suppose you could collect it through the supreme court? No, sir; you could not do any such thing. The North Wisconsin Railroad got an exemption for ten years and agreed to pay five per cent. of the gross earnings for that exemption, which, it is provided, shall go to the counties through which their lands lie. Do you suppose that is constitutional? No, sir; the supreme court would decide that that was unconstitutional whenever the question was presented to them. So I believe that that bill is correct, and unless a better one were presented I would vote for that. If they just give us that bill it will help men who are in debt. I believe some of the railroads are paying all the taxes they ought to pay, and I believe the only equitable way to collect the tax from them is just the way it is collected out of their gross earnings. I do not believe in confiscation. I do not believe in taking a railroad away from those men after it has been paid for three or four

times over, any more than I believe in taking a man's farm away from him after it has been paid for three or four times over. Let a man fight and get at the top of the heap if he can, and let him stay there.

James K. Rider, Waterloo-I would like to have the gentleman explain this. He says his property pays one per cent. These railroad companies have improved our state, and what do they get upon their dollar? Can you make taxation equal when they get twenty five per cent. and you get one?

Mr. Robbins It may not be made equal, but I say make it as near equal as we can.

Mr. Rider If Senator Anderson will attach that to his bill it will not do any hurt.

Mr. Robbins- We do not want to do any injustice to the railroad companies. We could not live without them. My products would not be worth anything without them, and I do not believe in crippling them, but we want them to pay taxes as we do, as

near as we can come at it.

J. A. Taylor, Sun Prairie-I am thankful for one, that we can stand this, and if we let poor whisky and tobacco alone, we can hold our heads up and say, we do not care, our farms are free ; and every man that I have talked with, that commenced to farm in Wisconsin forty or fifty years ago, is aboveboard to-day. There is no man that has failed, unless it is some man that has come here and is drinking poor whisky or smoking tobacco. All the farmers except those are free to-day, and will be. Every farmer is free, unless he is trying to do something illegitimate.

W. W. Field, Madison- I want to say a word in reference to the paper of Dr. Woodward, for I do not agree with him at all on a great many things. I do not believe we can sow our grain, I do not believe we can thresh our grain, I do not believe we can gather our harvest in this day and age of the world at twice the expense we used to. Where would the help come from to gather our immense crops of grain that are raised in this western country to-day? The people are not living in the states of Wisconsin, Iowa and Minnesota to begin to cut their grain if they left all other employments, without machinery.

Mr. Arnold He said it could be done as cheaply.

Dr. Woodward- I will call the gentleman to order. I made no such statement as he represents. I said there had not been a machine constructed that could harvest forty acres of wheat as cheaply as it could be done by the old hand cradle and the rake that followed it fifty years ago, and I can prove it. I said further that the improvement in machinery was that it had the ability of performing a much larger amount of labor in a given time. There was where the improvement was.

Aaron Broughton, Evansville At a greater cost.

Dr. Woodward - Yes.

Mr. Field-Isn't it a fair inference that the crops of the present day can be gathered as cheaply by the old process as the new?

ten.

Dr. Woodward -- No, sir, not by my statement. I will make this statement before the convention. Two years ago I put my oats in my barn. I did not have forty acres, but I had more than I asked a noted farmer living near me what it cost him to put his oats into the bin by the thresher. Says he: "I cannot do it less than from ten to twelve cents a bushel." I can hire to-day oats threshed in the barn and put in the bin for four cents a bushel, net.

Mr. Field Suppose you had a thousand acres, what would you do with it?

Dr. Woodward -I could not do it. That is not the point. How many farmers were there in Dane county last year but could have threshed all the wheat they raised with an old-fashioned flail?

HOW PLANTS GROW.

Lecture at Science Hall of the State University, by W. A. HENRY, Professor of Agriculture.

(NOTE. It is but just to Professor Henry to state, as his lecture was given without notes or references of any kind, it cannot be expected that it should be as free from repetitions or as concise as one which is written out beforehand. Moreover, many diagrams and blackboard illustrations were used, as well as specimens exhibited of the chemical elements talked about. The omission of these from the printed report of course greatly detracts from the value of the lecture to the general reader.-G. E. B.)

The elements which enter into plant structure I have in most cases in their simplest forms before me on the table. While we have altogether sixty-five elements which make up matter, there are only some twelve or thirteen which ordinarily enter into the composition of the plant. Some of these are essential, others nonessential. Of those which are essential we have carbon, of which charcoal is a fair representative of the solid form. Then of the gaseous elements we have three important ones in these three jars. which have been filled with different gases and are held in place by water. In this jar is oxygen, here is nitrogen, and here hydrogen. You understand that all these are capable of becoming solids, but at the temperature of our room they are all gaseous, and would be at a much lower temperature. In fact it was only a couple of years ago that they were reduced to the solid form. Here is potassium, which must be kept under oil to keep it from burning. This is sodium. In this is calcium, not as pure calcium, but as a chloride. Here is magnesium, also as a compound. Then we have in some plants silica in quite large quantities. Iron is a necessary constituent. Phosphorus I have here pure. Sulphur must also enter into the structure of the plant. This bottle is filled with the gas chlorine, of a yellowish color. Chlorine with sodium we know makes common salt. Chlorine is necessary to the life of some plants, but it is not known that it is essential to the life of all. I might show you some experiments with these gases, but I hardly wish to take time under present circumstances. Men may ask me how I know that these elements and no others