the manufacture of this spurious article resembling butter is largely on the increase-a business which must pay handsome profits, as is easily shown by the large number of men engaged in it.

The Chair. I would suggest that this subject would come up properly to-morrow morning, when the subject of dairy farming comes before us for discussion.

The next business on our programme is that of the appointment of the committees. There are two committees-the Committee on Credentials and the Committee on Nominations for Officers. How will you have these committees appointed?

A Member.-By the Chair.

The Chair. The Chair will appoint as the Committee on Credentials:

Mr. Burrough, Camden; Mr. Lippincott, Burlington; Mr. Williams, Essex. As a Committtee on Officers :

Prof. Cook, New Brunswick; H. I. Budd, Burlington; D. D. Denise, Monmouth.

The next business on our programme will be the reports of County Boards by their delegates, and also State and County Societies.

The State Agricultural Society is first in order. Their Corresponding Secretary, Mr. Quinn, is here.

The Secretary-Gentlemen, I will be very brief, as this report will appear in our annual report when printed. The State Society for the past year has been very successful-beyond precedent. We had the largest number of entries we ever had, amounting to over 6,000 in the different departments. The attendance was also very large and very gratifying, and the general satisfaction was very good. (See Reports.)

The Chair.-The State Horticultural Society, Mr. Williams.

Mr. Williams.-I have no written report. I will state in a few words that our annual meeting was held in this city on the 29th and 30th of December, with a very large attendance. The meetings were attended with a great deal of interest, and, judging from the remarks heard since and at the time of the meeting, the number of papers read and the topics of interest discussed, these were also of great interest to those present, and I think our report will be exceedingly valuable. We also had a very interesting lecture on pear blight and its prevention. The most important thing in this report, which will

most directly interest every consumer, was the discussion of the necessity of a national system of weights and measures.

The Chair. I think it would be better to bring it up at a later period. The committee that was appointed to wait on the Governor and the Legislature has returned and will please report.

Mr. Taylor. Your committee extended the invitation to the Governor, who regrets that his health and the pressing nature of his duties will prevent his acceptance.

We also extended the invitation to the President of the Senate and to the Speaker of the House.

The Chair.-The Cranberry Growers' Association will be the next to report. Hon. A. J. Rider. (See Reports.)

The Chair. The next society is the State Grange. (See Reports. The Secretary.-The Jersey Red Swine Breeders. (No one present. The Chair.-Atlantic County Board. (No response.)

The Chair.-The Egg Harbor City Agricultural Society, Mr. Hofman. (See Reports.)

The Chair. This is a very important report, and the industry at Egg Harbor City is also a very important one.

I feel sure that it would be to the benefit of every one to see this wonderful place, this Egg Harbor, which its residents have turned into a veritable garden. It would benefit all of us and every one outside of the Board. It would be not only of interest to you as becoming acquainted with their people, but it is certainly one of the most surprising things to me what they have done with this land. From the barren, sandy land they have made a beautiful and fertile garden; from an unproductive land they have turned it into an immense vineyard, showing what energy can achieve towards reclaiming the immense tracts of "barren lands" or "pines" in the lower part of this State. From being what we used to call barrens or pines, it has bloomed forth as very productive. Every Jersey farmer knows what these lands have been, but I will venture to say that few, if they have not seen them, would believe such a change possible. Al this change has been brought about by the use of fertilizers. By their use they have turned it into a garden.

The Secretary.-Burlington county, Mr. Budd. (See Reports.) The Chair.-Prof. Cook having reason to resign from the Committee on Nominations, I will appoint in his stead Mr. N. W. Parcell, of Union.

The meeting adjourned until 2:30 P. M.

AFTERNOON SESSION.

Convened at 2:45 P. M., in Masonic Hall, Trenton, Hon. Thomas H. Dudley, President, in the chair.

The Chair. Before proceeding with our business there is a matter which claims our attention, in which I think you are all interested, and that you will agree with me we should notice.

I see on the table below me a large number of very fine exhibits of corn, potatoes and other things. It has been our custom heretofore to appoint a committee to report at a later session. As a matter of course, we have no premiums to offer, but we should take notice of them in some way, and this can best be done by appointing a committee to examine and report on them before the close of our sessions. I only wish there were more of them-that our farmers showed more interest in the sessions of this State Board of Agriculture. I wish they could be induced to make these exhibits larger-that every farmer would bring something and thus swell the exhibit. I would like to see them doubled, trebled and quadrupled, as they might well be were all our members to take the interest in them they should take.

Last year we appointed a committee of three, I will follow the same rule this year and name the following gentlemen to act as a Committee on Exhibits:

Judge Parry, Burlington; Mr. Baldwin, Essex; J. W. Dickinson, Salem.

We did not get through this morning with the call of the counties, but our programme provides that the President's address shall take place at 2:30 and that the paper and discussion on hog cholera shall follow. I think it is best that we follow the programme. This is all the more important because Mr. Lockwood, who is to address you on this subject, will have to leave early, so, with your permission, we will suspend the calling of the counties until the discussion is over.

The first business, therefore, will be the President's address. (See President's address, immediately after the minutes.)

Mr. DeCou, Burlington.—Mr. Chairman, before we go on with this hog cholera, I would like to ask you a question about this India wheat to which you have referred in your address.

The Chair. I shall be pleased to answer any questions you may put in regard to it.

Mr. DeCou. I would like to know how these people in India produce this wheat so cheaply. If there are so many people there, even though they raise such large quantities of wheat, it would seem to me as if they must also use immense quantities for home consumption. I think the population is something like 250,000,000, is it not? We can understand why they should have surplus wheat where it is all land and no population, but we cannot understand how they can produce wheat so cheaply there as compared with other lands.

The Chair. I have been looking into this matter pretty thoroughly, and I will give the gentleman all the information I have been able to obtain upon the subject.

In the first place, the population is about 253,000,000 of people. The larger proportion of these people are miserably poor. Then they live very cheaply, few of them using wheat, the great mass of them living on rice, and you must know they can live very cheaply on rice. Then their clothing is very inexpensive-nothing in fact but one single garment-that is all they wear. The larger proportion of them never taste wheat at all.

Again, the lands in India are just as rich as anywhere else-as they are in the West. There are thousands and millions of acres that have never been cultivated at all. Lands larger in extent than the New England States, the States of New Jersey, New York and Pennsylvania, where there is not a mile of railway or any other system of transportation to the seaboard-no facilities of any kind.

A man can buy immense tracts of land, and when he can hire his labor done for six or seven cents a day, you can see how he can produce wheat to compete with our high-priced land and high-priced labor. He can prepare his land very much cheaper, he can put in his seed very much cheaper than you can put it in, even with your most improved machines.

Suppose you purchase a reaper at a cost of $150, and the interest, without counting repairs, is $9 per year, and then the average life of the machine is only about five years, or say that it lasts even a little longer-now you can see how easily they, with their low-priced labor, can compete with us. Take these figures and you will see how they can produce their crops so much cheaper than we can. They can hire men for from five to seven cents a day while you pay many times this and use your high-priced machines, and even then cannot produce your wheat as cheaply as India.

Last year I placed my estimate at ten cents a day, but I have, in conversation with Prof. Watrous, found that this is much too high, as he assures me that the price is never more than seven cents per day. "Why" says he, "I can get thousands of men at five cents a day." When a man can hire labor so cheaply, when he wants no machine except the plow to plow his ground, and the harrow to harrow it, remember he dispenses with all those expensive machines; when he can do all this it is a matter of little wonderment that he can produce wheat cheaply.

These men are paid say five cents a day wages; out of this they also find themselves. Just think of it. [Laughter]. I made a computation based on this five cents a day wages myself and find that what it will cost you for putting in say ten acres of wheat, sowing, reaping, binding and threshing it, will not be less than $7 an acre, or $70 for ten acres, at the wages paid in New Jersey, one hundred acres at this rate would cost $700. I may be mistaken somewhat in these estimates, but I think I am pretty near the mark, as in my early days I was a farmer and I have a little piece of land down in Camden county yet, as the gentleman from Burlington knows.

I have not gone into this subject to provoke political controversy among the farmers, but to open their eyes to what may be looked forward to with certainty. When India can place her wheat on the docks at Liverpool for 70 cents per bushel she can underbid America all the time—we cannot possibly hope to compete with her. Were it not for the protective tariff on wheat, India would even send it here to our own country and underbid us, but this 20 cents per bushel tariff has thus far sufficed to keep it away. However, if we expect to keep this foreign wheat away from our shores we can only do so by increasing this tariff.

Mr. DeCou. You say they can produce this wheat and deliver it in England for 70 cents a bushel; what can they bring it to us for? how much would it cost in San Francisco or New York?

The Chair. By way of the Suez canal they could now bring this to us, despite the tariff of 20 cents per bushel, for about $1 per bushel. Now you can see where the American farmer stands, as compared with the prospects in the near future for the Indian farmer. Remember there are thousands and thousands-yes, millions and millions of acres of the very best farming land in India that have never yet been opened to the world-where there are no transportation facilities