make a mistake; for you do better on your farms than you could with the value of your farms loaned as capital at ten per cent. If you do not believe so, your proper remedy is to turn the farm into money and loan the money at ten per cent. That is your true redress and that you do not do this, shows that you do not believe in the theory which you here advocate. If you believe that you would be better off loaning money at ten per cent. why do you not do it?

If you had interest fixed at five per cent. you could not secure money unless you should also make and enforce a law that money should not be loaned for more than this any where. And what is extortion if this is not? It is extortion, as truly as if you put a pistol to my head and said "Give me your money!" You say by such a rule "yield me your property for so much!"

The flunctuation spoken of is in the price of paper and not in interest. We know that there is no price in Wisconsin more firm than the price of money. There is nothing more sure than what you must pay for it.

The gentlemen says many people are out of work. Certainly they are; but it is because of the fluctuation engendered by paper money. We cannot seeure permanent industries until we have a permanent measure of values.

Mr. ANDERSON. The reason of the stagnation of business is because of contraction and not expansion.

Mr. DWIGHT. I never knew any member of the Dwight family who was a farmer but myself. I am not a poor man at all, yet all my family relations have done better than I have in the world. I have always paid as I went and I have made something it is true, but I have not made anything like the amount of property my brothers have and some of them certainly not of greater natural ability than myself. My brothers spend more in gew gaws in a year than I spend in thirty years, and yet one of them is worth half a million, living in a city, and he made it loaning money. My children all want to come to the University to get an education, because they see the poor man has no power in the land and an educated man is a power in the land, and that is the reason why so many young people want to leave the farm and go to the eities.

Mr. J. G. Hull, of Jefferson, offered the following resolution on the subject of interest, which, after some discussion was adopted:

Resolved, That this convention do hereby memorialize the Legislature of Wisconsin to so amend the laws regulating interest on money that the rate shall not exceed seven per cent. per annum, and that excess of interest shall be forfeited, with penalties for such violation.

Mr. FLINT. I came from a state where the rate of interest was six per cent., and I was in the Wisconsin Legislature when the rate was seven per cent. in Wisconsin, and I remember how the bankers came to us and argued that unless the interest was raised to ten per cent. no capital could be had in the state. But I found that the difference was a mere extortion, and the three per cent. that was added, was just so much taken right from the industries of Wisconsin and put into the pockets of the money-lenders.

Mr. BENTON. Argued at some length that the government which makes the money should control the rate of interest on that money.

Mr. BORLAND, Thought that the cost of production, which did not pay over three and one-third per cent. was the cause of the depression in the business of the country, and not the rate of interest; that the cost of production is respoasible for the lack of the industries of the country paying better than they do; that the question of interest should be left to the natural law of supply and demand, when it would work out its own proper results.

Secretary FIELD. I reiterate that the question of interest lies at the bottom of all the trouble, and the fluctuations in prices are largely caused by the ever-changing value of the dollar, or rise and fall of interest.

I wish to reply here to one or two statements of President Bascom, and then I will close upon this subject. He says we talk about capitalists as though they were a "condemned class," and "curse the men who help us." Now, Mr. President, I have never harbored such a thought; and I don't think the language used by any gentleman in the discussion of the merits of this paper will warrant such inference. I desire to have it distinctly understood that I make no war on individuals; neither do I blame them for loaning money for all the law allows. I would do the same, and so will every one. It is the power of money, by high rates of legal interest, that I am talking about; it matters not in whose hands it is, and the importance to the industries of the state and nation that it be controlled and fixed at a rate as low as arises annually from the great channels of business.

The President further says, in substance, that it is extortion to say that he shall have but 5 per cent., when he can get 10, as much so as it would be to say that a farmer shall have but fifty cents per bushel for his wheat when the market price is one dollar. The fallacy in the gentleman's argument is that money is merchandise, like wheat, &c. Wheat is property, but money is not; the material of which it is made may be, but it is simply a measure by which we are to justly measure the wheat and other property. The gentleman's theory of "supply and demand" regulation of money would not allow the regulation of tariffs on railroads, or tolls on mills, bridges, or other public corporations, when in fact the control of money is of a thousand times more importance than them all, because it and labor combined are the main-springs or motivepowers for bettering the condition of mankind, and increasing the wealth of the world. It is not so much the kind of money I care about, as that the quantity shall be equal to the requirements of business, with interest so low that the industries shall be profitable, furnishing the farmer, mechanic and common laborer with all the comforts and some of the luxuries of life, thus more equally distributing the profits or net earnings of labor and capital.

One other point, and I am done. President Bascom says that under our theory money would be so plenty that every boy in the streets would have his pockets full, and empty it all out for a stick of candy; that every man could make all the paper money he wanted, get all he needed without work. Now, sir, when the learned gentleman uses such language as that, he is cornered; he is driven to the wall. No man knows better than President Bascom that no man can get a dollar of the money issued by the Government, whether it be gold or paper, without first giving to that Government labor or commodities in exchange, and he must work for it, or give something valuable which labor has produced.

THE FUTURE OUTLOOK OF THE DAIRY INTEREST IN

WISCONSIN.

BY STEPHEN FAVILL,

President Wisconsin Dairymen's Association, Lake Mills.

The question before us for consideration is the future outlook of the dairy interest in Wisconsin. To enable us to arrive at correct conclusions in the matter, we must look a little at the conditions that surround the farmers of our state. To be brief, I will make this general statement (and I am confident that those at all acquainted with the fact will admit it is true,) that raising wheat will not furnish the farmers of Wisconsin money enough to enable them to meet their expenses, and that the farmers as a class have got to do one of two things. Either do something that will furnish more money or they must spend less; and I may here say, it is quite likely we shall have to do both, for I hardly think any system of agriculture will support our extravagant ways of living. Then comes the question: Will the dairy give us a solution of this question? We answer, we think it will furnish at least a partial solution of it.

Without going into details in this matter, I make two general statements and leave them to be controverted by any who think they can successfully do so. First, no community or state has ever become wealthy and remained so by grain raising, and selling in the market. Especially is this true of wheat raising. Second, the dairy has always been a sure source of wealth whenever and whereever it has been intelligently managed. If it be true that the dairy has been a success in the older states where they have been long engaged in the business, then comes the query have we in Wisconsin the soil and conditions that will insure success? In the outset, we admit that our soil and climate are not as favorable for successful dairying as in many of the eastern states, but on the other hand we have some advantages which they do not possess: and by

means of these advantages we can fully make up for the natural disadvantages under which we labor. The principal drawback to successful dairying in Wisconsin is our oft repeated and long continued drought. But even these, by a wise foresight and a little expense, may be so provided against as to be comparatively harmless. The early planting of a few acres of corn expressly for summer feed, and a moderate stock of grain laid in to be used if needed, will bridge over a pretty severe drought with but little extra expense. The natural advantages which we enjoy over the Eastern and older states are cheapness of land, cheap, coarse grain and mill feed. In these we have so decided an advantage over the East that I am of the opinion that the same amount of money invested here in dairying will yield a much larger dividend than in any of those states. I have said that cheapness of grain is one of our advantages for dairying. Many persons are not aware that it costs only a little more to keep a cow upon grain than upon hay. It will take one acre of extra grass to furnish enough hay for winter fodder for a cow, and the same acre planted to corn, and the stalks well saved, will not only furnish winter fodder, but the corn if fed to the cow with the stalks in winter and with pasturage in summer, will enable the cow to give us a good flow of milk during the milking season, while the hay would do but little more than sustain the animal life. The difference in cost then is the difference in the expense of raising an acre of grass and an acre of corn. We have the same investment for land, and the difference in cost is but small when compared with profit from feeding the corn. The question of whether the dairy can be made profitable in Wisconsin has already been settled. Those who have had access to the balance sheet of the dairymen know that no branch of farming has paid as well for the last eight years as the dairy, and we think the question of the future dairy interest in Wisconsin will depend largely upon the amount of brains we put into it.

If we undertake to run it in a slip-shod manner as we do much of our other farming, it will prove a failure. On the other hand, if we intelligently care for and foster it, we may rely upon good, financial returns. Many are still fearful that the business is going to be overdone; that more butter and cheese is going to be made than can be sold at a paying price. Upon a careful review of the whole matter, we think these fears are groundless. When we consider the