judging from what I know of them, but if every farmer in the United States belonged to the Grange, and the masters of every State Grange would meet every month, and they had an organization as complete as that of the manufacturers, they could control in the spring the crop of cabbages, for instance. Last year cabbages were scarce and high. The working people and some rich people who like cabbages had to pay a great price for them; consequently, this spring, everybody planted cabbages, and this fall you can hardly give them away; they are a drug in the market. They are not worth pulling after you have raised them. The manufacturers will never be caught in any such way as that. I was told a month ago by a gentleman who was in a situation to know, that a merchant in Brownsville, Texas, bought his shovels of Gov. Oliver Ames of Massachusetts and paid him six dollars a dozen. Now, Gov. Ames can make his shovels a great deal cheaper than that, but the farmers who have to use shovels have to pay twelve dollars a dozen. This gentleman owned a store right across the Rio Grande in Mexico, and he paid Gov. Ames six dollars a dozen for the shovels he sold in the United States and only two dollars a dozen for those he sold across the river. A fact in connection with the paper-makers of Holyoke, which occurred between 1872 and 1880, illustrates this point. After the panic of 1872, money was scarce, business was dull, over-production, as they said, did it, and they were forced, in spite of the tax on foreign paper, to go abroad to find a market for their paper, and one large firm in Holyoke had a paper store in London, kept their mills running, and supplied the English with paper at profit. Wages were not so high then as they are now in Holyoke.

Mr. WETMORE. I suppose that Dr. Bowen differs with me in theory, as I understand him. Is that the case?

Dr. BOWEN. I judge so.

Mr. WETMORE. I suppose any difference of opinion, then, must have its root in fundamental principles. I would really like to know where you begin to question the fundamental

principles that I laid down. The first one is, that food is necessary to subsistence. I suppose you have no objection to that? Dr. BOWEN. Not at all, three times a day. (Laughter.)

Mr. WETMORE. The second is, that human labor is absolutely necessary to produce enough of it. That, I suppose, you would not object to?

Dr. BOWEN. Certainly not. Unfortunately for the human race it is.

Mr. WETMORE. The third is, that the human race is divided into two general divisions, producers and non-producers.

Dr. BOWEN. Just the same as ministers divide us into the godly and ungodly.

Mr. WETMORE. Now, then, if you agree to all those propositions I would like to know what you are going to do with the deduction that the producers of food have an inalienable right to it, and the non-producers can get it justly only by rendering an equivalent service to those who produce it? In other words, that the producers of food support the nonproducers for what they are supposed to do for them in return. Do you agree to that?

Dr. BOWEN. Yes, sir, precisely.

Mr. WETMORE. Then, if we have certain work done that is done by non-food producers we pay them by feeding them. Well, we want to get that work done with just as little expense of feed as possible, do we not?

Dr. BowEN. Of course.

Mr. WETMORE. Well then, I do not see where we differ. (Laughter.)

Dr. BOWEN. I see my friend Hinman is rising, and I shall have to leave the question with him, as I must now leave. But before I go I will suggest one point. All trusts bear heavily upon one portion of the community, and do not distribute their burden evenly over the whole; they let up on one set and crowd down on another. The beef trust bears down on the cattle growers of the West, crowding the price down to the lowest minimum, and, holding the

position of the middleman, they can let it up in such ways in various sections as to kill out the farming interests. That is the general principle of all trusts. I will yield the floor to Mr. Hinman. I am very sorry that I cannot keep it any longer.

Mr. WETMORE. I would like to say that I cannot get into a quarrel with Dr. Bowen on this point any more than any other.

Prof. BREWER. My impression is that this question can be argued forever. I have no idea that it will ever be settled by argument. I move that we go on to the Question Box.

Mr. WEBB. I want to ask a question of each farmer here: What is the value of his farm to-day, if he should place it in the market, compared with its value twenty-five years ago? There are many reasons for the depreciation in the value of our farms, but there is one reason which I will illustrate very shortly. It is that the farmer has to carry a heavy load of water and pay for the bucket to carry it in. (Applause.) When I go home I have got to carry a load of water, and I have got to pay for the bucket to carry it in. The railroads are going before the Legislature to compel me to carry two buckets. Why? Because they have got a surplus in the treasury, and they cannot divide it up, because of the law of the Legislature forbidding them to pay above a certain percentage, and they are going to try the same remedy which the New York Central Railroad tried when Mr. Vanderbilt found himself in the same box. He watered the stock to the amount of $80,000,000. Now, where is the remedy? It is that we have got to say to the railroad corporations, "We are not going to allow you to load us down with this burden. We will carry a small load of water, but we will not pay for the bucket."

Mr. HINMAN. I thought I would just call attention to a few of the ideas presented by the essayist to which Dr. Bowen referred, but I conclude from some of the remarks which have been made that the convention is weary of the subject, and I do not propose to say anything about it.

Mr. CORNISH. money on all these things? The producer does not make it, the consumer pays it, but the middleman pockets the profit. What is the remedy?

Does not the middleman make all the

Vice-President DAY. Gentlemen, the Secretary has a box full of questions here, and I presume the audience will be pleased to discuss them and hear them discussed. You are invited to be as pointed in your remarks as possible, and bring out the subject-matter.

THE QUESTION BOX AGAIN OPENED.

Secretary GOLD. "What is the best Connecticut agricultural paper?" That seems to be a somewhat personal question. As we have but one strictly agricultural paper, so called, in Connecticut, it admits but one answer.

Mr. OLCOTT. The Connecticut Courant. (Laughter and applause.)

Secretary GOLD. "Is there any law in Connecticut against the sale of adulterated cheese? If not, why not?"

Mr. KIRKHAM. I should say "Yes." Consequently the next question is superfluous. But the law is not enforced. Right there, Mr. Secretary, I would suggest that our legislators put that matter into the charge of the Dairy Commissioner.

Secretary GOLD. A very good proposition. "What is it that stings our grape-vines and makes our grapes turn black and fall off?"

Mr. AUGUR. I think there is a misapprehension on the part of the person who asked that question. I think it is a fungus.

Mr. MEECH. It is the black rot that is described in the question. It is not the effect of the stinging of the vine, it is the effect of the fungus on the berry. We are very much. afflicted in all the vineyards in Vineland, New Jersey, with this fungus lighting on the grape when the berry is moist, and sending it mycelium, its little roots, as it germinates into

the grape, ultimately causing the entire crop to turn black, as described in the question.

Secretary GOLD. "Are cow peas worth more for forage in Connecticut than corn, and do they need high manuring?" Who has used cow peas for fodder?

Mr. HOYT. Has anybody ever tried raising them North? Prof. BREWER. As I understand, they cannot be cultivated as a field crop with any degree of profit north of Delaware or southern New Jersey, getting the seed from the South. You may raise vines to some extent, but they are uncertain anywhere as far north as this.

Mr. MITCHELL. I have had a little experience with the cow pea. A friend in Virginia sent me some which I planted. The stalk grew nearly as large as my finger, but as for being used for hay I should prize the same quantity of cucumber vines equally as much as I should the cow pea. But I got some specimens and they ripened. They bore a pod perhaps six or eight inches long, and I have some of the seed at home that ripened in our vicinity; but, as I said, I should never think of cultivating it for hay.

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN. About an acre of cow peas was planted on the ground of the Storrs School farm during the present season by Professor Phelps. As he is not here to answer this question for himself I would like to say a word. The cow pea is really a bean, the foliage very closely resembling the ordinary bush bean and growing in a very similar form, not with a vine to any considerable extent, but growing some two feet and a half in height under favorable circumstances, and with a very dense foliage. The cultivation required is not excessive. The ground selected for the production of this crop was an acre upon which corn had been grown the preceding year, with a small addition of superphosphate; it was sown broadcast. The crop was a very abundant one, something like ten tons being produced upon this acre. These were not fed in the green state, but were put into the silo and are still to be tested. Prof. Phelps has told me, however, that during the preceding year he grew a crop of