Rensselaer Union, Volume 5, Number 37, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 5 June 1873 — NATIONAL AGRICULTURAL CONGRESS. [ARTICLE]

NATIONAL AGRICULTURAL CONGRESS.

FIRST DAT’* PROCEEDINGS. The National Agricultural Congress began its second annual session at Indianapolis on the 28tli of May. There were oue hundred and fifty delegates present, representing ninety societies in twenty-three States and Colorado Territory, The President, Mr. Reynolds, of Illinois, being absent, Mr. A. M. Garland, of the same State, was chosen to preside. At the afternoon session, Governor Hendricks was introduced, and delivered an address of welcome to the,delegates, assuring them that the State of Indiana extended to them and the cause they represented a hearty welcome and a helping hand. He said the people of the State “are largely interested in mechanical, manufacturing, and mining enterprises, but their permanent interest is in agriculture, and their sympathies are earnestly with you in all your efforts to promote the dignity and influence and the prosperity of the farming and planting classes.” In behalf of the city, Mayor Mitchell next addressed the convention, welcoming the members to the city’B hospitality. At the conclusion of the Mayor’s remarks, President Sullivan, of the Indiana State Board of Agriculture, welcomed the associations in behalf of that body. General Jackson, of Tennessee, returned thanks for the Congress. He remarked incidentally that they were not to fight railroads, which depended upon agriculture as agriculture depended upon them, but they would demand that the railroads should have no more than their rights, and that by extortion they should not oppress the agricultural interests of the country. [Applause.] They should do away with middle-men, and bring the producing classes in closer contact with the carriers. After the appointment of the regular Committees, the Secretary submitted the third annual report, from which it appears there are 10,000 societies in the country-, two-thirds of which were organized during the past six months. An average- of forty members to each society would make 400,000 farmers, banded together for mutual benefit. That was simply the beginning of the movement. Societies having fifty members were entitled to one representative in the Congress. Many societies, being in their infancy, had no representatives this year, but would next. The societies met with due regularity, and the cooperative idea was being experimented upon in many places. Resolutions were introduced and referred—declaring that all effort on the part of the organization of any class to increase or decrease the value of labor or the products of labor are injurious in their influence and agaiust the interest of farmers; that the eight-hour law passed by Congress, being a disturbing element in the management of the business of the whole country, ought to be repealed; indorsing the efforts being made to secure additional aid from Congress in behalf of Agricultural Colleges established by. the laud-grant of 1862; approving the Morrill bill, and providing for a committee to memorialize Congress on the subject, and promote it in such manner as they thought best. Professor llcllly, State Entomologist of Missouri, spoke on the cotton worm, which, in one week last, year, destroyed $20,000,000 worth of cotton. He felt quite assured that Paris green would clean out the pest, as it had destroyed the potato beetle. The mineral mixed with thirty parts of flour would be effective, and twenty pounds of Paris green, at twenty-five cents a pound, would dolor several acres. It could also be applied in water. Adjourned.