Repository: UIHistories Project: Board of Trustees Minutes - 1884 [PAGE 78]

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82 six millions of dollars annually from the profits of the farm., I look to see better farm machinery, and to see it better cared for. I expect to see a farmer leave his best bed in the mowing field sooner than to allow his mower to rust there until the next haying season. I expect to see by each barn a spacious shed for wagons, and the wagons sheltered there from sun and rain when not in use. I look to see each farm wagon furnished with a set of wide-tired wheels to run when the roads are likely to be cut up by the running of narrow tired wheels; by this device, and by the proper drainage of the roads, I look to see them easily passible during three-fourths of the time that they now are nearly impassible, with a corresponding gain to all concerned. In brief, I look to see more brain work directing hand labor in all farming enterprises, and as a result I expect to see many millions of dollars added annually to the profits of farming in the State of Illinois. In this way t expect to see the State maintain its leading position as the first agricultural state in the Union, and that in the value of its lands, in the aggregate product of its farms, in the numbers and value of the live stock, the footings of the census of 1910 shall • double the similar quantities set down in the census of 1880. Concerning the manufacturing interests of the'State and their progress it is less easy to predict with confidence. Much depends upon outward circumstances. I am not here to argue the vexed question of the tariff, whether for protection or for revenue, or of either upon manufactures. A large part of the manufactures of Illinois, like that of leather, and lumber, and flour, and agricultural machinery and wagons, and the packing of meats, and the distilling of grain, is so little assisted by any tariff, as to feel it rather in what it pays than in what it receives. From now forward there must be a constant expansion in the output from the coal deposit beneath the surface of the State. Mines are constantly opening, and those that are open constantly extend their operations. Upon the plentiful development of the coal more than any other thing depends the certain and enduring prosperity of the manufacturing interests of the State. The question of fuel is the question of power. The question of power is predominant. New England was forced to become a manufacturer because her soil is too barren to give her a living, while every streamlet that sparkles down her hillsides leaps with joy over countless dams aiid vexing turbine wheels, and so furnishes power almost for the asking. Pennsylvania's power as a manufacturer lies in her veins of anthracite and bituminous coal, while the proximity of both New.York and Philadelphia to the same sources of power, gives to the two cities an aggregate production of nearly $800,000,000 per annum, being more than the totals of either state of New York or Pennsylvania. So will it be here in Illinois, that the development of her manufacturing interests, except so far as they rest upon her agricultural prosperity—furnishing that which the farmer needs to use in carrying on his work, or reducing the bulk of his product for the better transportation—the progress of ordinary manufacturing will depend upon the development of fuel.