ures.
If the population of Mexico and Canada were homogenous with ours,
the union of the three countries would make the whole the most
powerful nation in the world."

I then entered into the canvass. I attended the state fair at
Columbus on the 2nd of September, first visiting the Wool Growers'
Association, and making a brief speech in respect to the change in
the duty on wool by the tariff of 1883. I reminded the members of
that association that they were largely responsible for the action
of Congress on the wool schedule, that while all the other interests
were largely represented before the committees of Congress, they
were only represented by two gentlemen, Columbus Delano and William
Lawrence, both from the State of Ohio, who did all they could to
prevent the reduction. Later in the day I attended a meeting of
the state grange, at which several speeches had been made. I
disclaimed the power to instruct the gentlemen before me, who knew
so much more about farming that I, but called their attention to
the active competition they would have in the future in the growth
of cereals in the great plains of the west. I described the wheat
fields I had seen far west of Winnipeg, ten degrees north of us in
Canada. I said the wheat was sown in the spring as soon as the
surface could be plowed, fed by the thawing frosts and harvested
in August, yielding 25 to 40 bushels to the acre, that our farms
had to compete in most of their crops with new and cheap lands in
fertile regions which but a few years before were occupied by
Indians and buffaloes. "We must diversify our crops," I said, "or
make machines to work for us more and more. New wants are created
by increased population in cities. This is one lesson of many
lessons we can learn from the oldest nations in Europe. With large
cities growing up around us the farmer becomes a gardener, a demand
is created for dairy products, for potatoes, and numerous articles
of food which yield a greater profit. In Germany, France and Italy
they are now producing more sugar from beets than is produced in
all the world from sugar cane. The people of the United States
now pay $130,000,000 for sugar which can easily be produced from
beets grown in any of the central states." I said much more to
the same purport.

I visited all parts of the state fair, and tried to avoid talking
politics, but wherever I went on the ground I found groups engaged
in talking about the Toledo conven