Another thing the farmers of Kansas want to pay greater attention to, is road-making. Years ago, when the farms were scattered, and the roads ran along the divides, we had, without cost or labor, the best natural highways on the continent. But the occupancy of the country, and the fences or the herd law, have diverted the roads to the section lines, and, as a result, our highways are generally execrable. The losses entailed upon the farmers of Kansas, growing out of these wretched roads, are enormous. They foot up in a dozen different directions—in loss of valuable time, in injury of horses, in breakage of vehicles, in destruction of harness, in a multiplication of trips, and in many other ways. Above all other men, the farmers of Kansas require good roads. Increased tax levies for public highways, and an intelligent expenditure of these levies, is one of the great needs of Kansas. A marked decrease of the prevalent Kansas mania for new railroads, and an equally marked increase of public interest in the construction of decent country roads, would be a wholesome reform of incalculable advantage to the farmers of Kansas. The law most needed in this State is a good road law—an act that will put the building or repairing of our public highways under competent direction, and furnish ample means for such work, and thus give to Kansas a system of durable roads, macadamized wherever the ground is soggy, and with solid stone culverts or bridges wherever these are necessary. The four questions I have thus discussed—the pecuniary value of home adornments, the exposure of farm implements to the mercy of the elements, the importance of commodious barns, and the necessity of improved roads—are of direct personal and practical interest to every Kansas farmer. And what interests the farmers of Kansas, must be of moment to every citizen. For Kansas is an agricultural country. The prosperity of this State is based upon its farm products. Our mineral resources are, in comparison with our agricultural productions, small and unimportant. We have some lead in the southeast; we have coal in many sections, and the supply is equal to the wants of our people; we have salt and gypsum in abundance. But the wealth of Kansas lies in our harvest fields. Our prosperity is based, primarily, upon the plow. Kansas embraces over fifty-two million acres of land. Fully fifty million acres of this vast area of country is capable of producing luxuriant crops. Only a little over thirteen million acres—less than one-fourth of the entire area—is now under cultivation, and the land classed as “under cultivation” includes nearly five million acres of prairie grass. Practically, therefore, only about seven million acres of Kansas soil have been touched by the plow. Yet the products this year will aggregate fully ten million bushels of wheat, two hundred million bushels of corn, six million bushels of rye, three million bushels of