man of said committee, furnishing full and complete data upon which to base a report.

The report of the committee was received and the resolutions adopted.

Mr. Fontaine, of Georgia, submitted a preamble and resolution on the subject of fertilizing. The preamble recited that the annual outlay for fertilizing is $25,000,000. It was, therefore, recommended that each county society represented in this Congress, or hereafter to be admitted, should, through its secretary, forward to the Secretary of the Congress approximate statements giving the amount of fertilizers used, their money value, kinds used, and cost of transportation, with the distance transported.

The following resolution was offered and adopted:

Resolved, That the Congress of the United States, which has heretofore so liberally protected the manufacturing interests of the country, be memorialized to aid the Agriculture of the United States by admitting, free of duty, the following chemicals which we think contain all the great essentials of plant food, to the end that the manufacture of fertilizers be cheapened and agricultural interest proportionably benefited nitrate of potash, nitrate of soda, salt, gypsum, sulphate of ammonia, German salts of potash, or potash in any form, and sulphuric acid.

Gen. Jackson read a series of resolutions, reported from the committee to whom Com. Maury's address was referred. The resolutions appealed to every agricultural or mechanical society, club, and association, in behalf of the movement, soliciting their co-operation by memorials to Congress, and otherwise. Further, they looked to the raising of a committee of one from each State of the Union to exert itself in favor of Com. Maury's plan. They requested all journals to note the proceedings and give them their sanction. The resolutions were adopted.

THE FIRST NATIONAL AGRICULTURAL CONGRESS. 219

Mr. R. S. Elliott, of Kansas, read the report of the Committee on Forest Culture.

To carry out the views embodied in the report the committee submitted the following resolutions:

1. That we recommend farmers throughout the United States to plant their hilly or otherwise waste lands, and at least ten per cent. of their farms, with trees, in such manner as to provide shelter belts or clumps of rapid growing and useful timber.

2. That we solicit the Legislatures of the several States to pass laws providing bounties for planting trees, encouraging the planting of the highways, and for the provision of State nurseries of young timber trees, and also the appointment of an "arbor day" for the annual planting of trees, as has already been done in the State of Nebraska.

3. That we ask the Congress of the United States to require, so far as practicable, that railroad companies and settlers hereafter receiving the benefit of the homestead and other acts donating lands, shall plant with timber trees onetenth of the land so donated.

The importance of this subject was thoroughly discussed, and the resolutions were adopted.

Professer Turner, of Jacksonville, Ill., read an able and characteristic essay on the education of farmers. The subject was treated eloquently, and the essay was marked by the originality and profound thought for which the professor is noted. The lecturer showed that common school education throughout the United States, as it was now administered, was exerting its whole force to drive men away from the farm and from industrial pursuits; that farmers and industrial men were the only class of men in the United States that could rectify the matter. Teachers can not do it. In the elucidation of his subject, he pointed out what he conceived to be radical errors in our common school system, and showed how the common school discipline was calculated

to unfit boys for the active duties of life. On motion of General Jackson, a vote of thanks was tendered Professor Turner. Some discussion occurred on a proposition to adopt the speaker's positions and print the address, but no action was taken.

After assembling in the afternoon, the preliminary business being finished, an address on practical entomology was delivered by Professor C. V. Riley, State Entomologist of Missouri. A vote of thanks was tendered the eminent speaker.

The committee to whom was referred a resolution memorializing Congress to make additional land grants for Agricultural College purposes, reported that in their judgment the proposition for further national aid for Agricultural Colleges was one of pre-eminent merit, provided such guards and guarantees could be thrown around it as to secure the end sought. The lands already donated had generally been frittered away. The committee conclude by an expression of their belief that it was the duty of Congress to pass a declaratory act so clear as to settle all controversy, and to withhold all further aid until such time that it was found that the true ends of the original appropriation were being reached by these institutions.

Several essays which were prepared, but not read for want of time, were referred to appropriate committees.

After the usual votes of thanks, the Congress adjourned to meet at Indianapolis, at ten o'clock A. M., on the fourth Wednesday of May, 1873.

Thus ended one of the most important conventions ever held by the farmers of America; important as showing their earnestness of purpose, and the uniform good feeling pervailing between different sections of the country. It was not expected that the way would prove free of all difficulties.

THE FIRST NATIONAL AGRICULTURAL CONGRESS. 221

It was especially felt that to be successful the Congress must be sustained by the agricultural masses throughout the nation, and especially by the Industrial Societies, Farmers' Clubs, and other organizations relating to agriculture, over the length and breadth of the land. The door was opened, however, and the way made clear.

CHAPTER XVIII.

THE FIRST BLOOMINGTON, ILLS., CONVENTION.

EFFECT OF THE WAR ON AGRICULTURE.

From 1858 to the breaking out of the war, the subject of the various taxes which all products paid before they reached the consumer, were earnestly and frequently discussed. But soon there were mutterings of another kind, and when the dogs of war were at length let loose, convulsing the country from the Atlantic to the Pacific, and from the great lakes to the Gulf, all questions were dropped other than which related to the salvation of our national unity. Production was stimulated, trade flourished, prices were more and more inflated, money was plenty, and farmers prospered, and readily sold their surplus at remunerative prices.

The war, however, brought into existence a horde of speculators, who exercised their enterprise and craft, not only in the All forgotten, processes of moving, maintaining, and tion's Unity. operating large armies, but in other mat

save the Na