it is their disregard of public rights, and not the efforts which this chamber has made to compel their observation, which is chiefly responsible for the growth of communistic sentiment in this state. If railroads were not public highways, upon which all shippers, as well as passengers, are entitled to equal rights; if the discovery of steam and its application to the purposes of transportation, with all its attendant benefits, could be esteemed alone the private property of these gentlemen, then the argument of Messrs. Vanderbilt and Jewett might be considered valid, and the efforts of your committee seditious, socialistic, and worthy of condemnation.

"It is hardly neccessary to say that your committee have no sympathy with socialists or communists who want something for nothing; this class of persons might perhaps find fault with your committee for being capitalists; but on the other hand, we cannot uphold a system of operating public highways which is honeycombed with abuses, and which is controlled absolutely by a few individuals who tax production and commerce at will, and who practically dictate what reward the producer, manufacturer and merchant shall receive for his labor."

All classes of citizens are interested in having remedies promptly applied to these evils, and especially are those interested who have property; for if ever communistic views make headway in this country it will be in consequence of the toleration of class privileges, and disregard of the spirit of our free institutions. These are the breakers ahead which every true patriot will pray that our ship of state may avoid.

The immediate remedy is:

The creation of an intelligent public opinion, through which reasonable limits may be placed upon the growth and power of corporate life.

It is time enough to take further steps when this has been accomplished. At present, the corporations are masters of the situation, but with an intelligent public opinion thoroughly aroused, it is only a question of time when it will compel a fair adjustment of the relations between the people and the creatures the people have created.

We are perhaps more interested in the transportation of our own state, but we must go outside in order to thoroughly comprehend what these railroads are doing, and hereafter it will be one of the things for us to look after, to see when we do regulate this matter that we don't estimate the railroads at their present value. If they are not worth more than one-quarter of what they are represented to be worth; if we give them a certain percentage on their investment, we are very apt, in legislating, when we think we are legislating for the people, really to legislate for the roads. In that, of course, the statesman, and the farmer as well, have got to keep their eyes open to the facts.

I did not design to blackguard the legislature by reading this article. It is only to have them sharpen up their brains and be ready for business.

Yes, I believe that the farmers of Wisconsin and the Union must understand this matter of railroad transportation, and know no party but that party that is in favor of the protection of one and all alike.

It is apparent that railroads and corporate interests have been fostered by the national government and by some of the states of the Union to an alarming degree. The farmers have sixteen representatives in congress; an equal representation with other industrial classes would give them one hundred and thirty more members. It still remains for the citizen farmer of Wisconsin to control the state, and in that control alone remains freedom to ourselves and to our children. Our influence must not be subservient in the promotion of rival interests. Agriculture must stand at the head; a consolidated power its ultimate destiny; a complete sovereignty with the people, the dignified controller of our own rights. The honorable gentleman from Trempealeau has said he dislikes to see this agricultural society converted into a scolding-school in the abuse of the legislature. Does he question the right or duty of representative farmers, such as are here convened, to insist upon equal justice and fair play?

SWEETS OF WISCONSIN.

By S. HANSEN, Whitewater.

In our soil lies much of the wealth of our country; its products are purchased by foreign countries, and in return gold by millions are paid back to the people.

Individuals engaged in husbandry study to know what their soil is best adapted to; if to producing cereals, they pursue that branch of industry; if to raising cattle, horses, sheep or hogs, they pursue those branches of business; if to raising cotton, or cane for sugar and syrup, they engage in that as the most profitable. They calculate not only to raise for their own families and home consumption, but for exportation likewise. We would think the man very unwise that could raise his own grain, beef and pork and grow his own wool, and depend upon importing them from some other clime or country.

In the year 1879, there was consumed in the United States, according to the reckoning of the commissioner of agriculture, two billion pounds of sugar; and of this amount one billion seven hundred and forty-three million five hundred and sixty thousand pounds, or more than eighty per cent., besides thirty-eight million. three hundred and ninety-five thousand five hundred and seventyfive gallons of molasses (the whole valued at $75,000,000, or duty added, $114,516,745), were imported.

Is it wise to pay such enormous sums to other countries for an article we can produce among ourselves, and thereby save the money among our own people?

The commissioner farther says, from the figures in our possession, it is found that over and above the amount of all sugars produced in the United States since 1849, we have consumed during the same period not less than eighteen hundred millions of dollars worth of foreign sugars and their allied products, or an amount of sugar more than equal in value to all the precious metals mined in the country since the discovery of gold in California, and nearly equal to the public debt at the present time.

It is well known that most of our soil is adapted to raising a

cane that will grow successfully as far north as forty degrees of latitude.

The Chinese cane was introduced into the United States in 1854 or 1855, and following soon after, some thirty varieties, all of which were almost worthless as sugar producing canes, until about the year 1873, a kind called the Early Golden or Early Amber cane (Kenney and Miller of Minnesota claiming its origin), frequently producing one gallon of syrup from five or six gallons of juice, crystalizing readily and yielding from one hundred to two hundred gallons of syrup to the acre on good soil, averaging one hundred and fifty gallons to the acre, and will yield at least five pounds of sugar to the gallon.

Admitting we can raise but one hundred gallons of syrup to the acre, producing five hundred pounds of sugar, Wisconsin with her thirty-four million acres of land, with one-eighth planted to cane, would yield sufficient of sugar and syrup for home consumption; and Illinois with her thirty-five million acres of land, with one-fourth planted to cane, would supply our home demand for consumption, and as much more for export.

In 1856 George Esterly, then of Heart Prairie, Walworth county, procured from the patent office at Washington, a number of small packages of the large, late variety of Chinese cane, planted and cultivated it (all that was not plucked up for pigeon grass when it first came up), and when grown all the season would permit, harvested it and tried to manufacture it with a wooden crusher and sheet iron pan, and made an article, according to a frequent expression, that went a great way in the family, as the last I heard him speak of it, he did not know but he had some of it yet on hand.

The next season, 1857, I sent for some seed, planted it and raised the cane; then up with a wooden crusher with three cylinders eighteen inches in diameter and two feet long, with six-inch journals, keyed up the machine very tight, hitched on the team, put in the cane and started. Then there was all kinds of music.

within a radius of half a mile-excepting sacred music.

I made an article that sold readily for fifty cents per gallon, and became interested in growing it; believed there was money

in it; have followed manufacturing it since 1857, until the present time, excepting one year, making since 1866 from two to five thousand gallons per year.

I sold my farm on Heart Prairie in 1866, moved to Whitewater and put up one of Clark & Utter's crushers and railroad evaporators. I made a syrup that sold for one dollar per gallon, frequently filling with grape sugar, but little cane sugar; but since I have grown the Early Amber I have no difficulty in making a syrup that will yield at least six pounds of sugar to the gallon of syrup, with heat only as a defecator, and have now not a doubt but there is money in it for the country.

Men

It is a branch of industry that needs encouragement. that have been engaged in Cuba and in the Southern States in refining sugars and syrups from the southern cane know no more about the process of making sugar from the northern cane than if they had never been engaged in the business. They have not the acid nor glucose to contend with in the ribbon cane that there is in the northern cane; yet all that have tested it, come to the conclusion that there is as much crystalized sugar in the same quantity of juice of the northern cane as there is in the southern; and while its general manufacture throughout the country is in embryo, men of capital, like McDowall, of Chicago, operating at South Elgin, thus far has spent $15,000 to solve the problem of refining sugar and syrup from sorghum, are bound to succeed.

Upwards of twenty individuals in Wisconsin, Illinois and Minnesota, within a short period, have started out with fixed resolu tions to succeed in refining sugar and syrup from sorghum. Some few have done it, while the others have fallen back upon refining syrup alone.

Among the successful ones are Dr. Wilhelm, of Faribault, Minnesota; his works cost some $10,000, and have a capacity of five hundred gallons per day, producing a fine article of coarse crystal yellow sugar, which would grade and sell in any market by the side of New Orleans No. 2 yellow, at the rate of six pounds of sugar to the gallon of syrup.

Thoms, of Crystal Lake, claims to have succeeded; he did well in 1879, but we have learned but little of his doings the past year.