Mr. KELLEY: I move to amend the amendment by striking out “9" and inserting “8.” I propose this amendment proformd for the purpose of saying what is indisputably true, that the question of protection here today is more eminently a question of protection to the growers of wheat than of protectionto the manufacture of any fabric. Sir, from the year 1850 to 1860 the wheat crop of Ohio fell from 30 million bushels perannum to 15 millions. Our average crop from virgin soil is about 30 bushels to the acre. Our crop from old soil, worked under the free trade policy, which has prevailed throughout our history with rare and brief intervals, is from 7 to ten bushels peracre. Under free trade our farmers draw but an av erage of 12 bushels from the acre; while England, importing breadstuffs and converting them into manures, has enabled her farmers by equal labor to draw from the acre, not 12 bushels, as they formerly did, but from 35 to 43 bushels. When those whom the Gentfrom Illinois represents draw wheat from. the prairies for exortation they draw from the soil a portion of) the vital principle of wheat for exportation; whileif the wheat they produce were consumed in the neighborhood and the straw consumed by the mules and horses‘of iron works and coal mines, the vital elements thus abstracted would be restored to their land and the next year the crop would be as heavy as the last. But they gather u their crop, and if.there be a foreign market fbr it send it over 1000s of miles of railroad and across the ocean, to be transmuted into manure and increase the reward of the English farmer’s labor. Free trade thus diminishes the results of the labor of the gentleman‘s constituents upon their acres. The farmers of the prairies need such protection as the provisions of this bill will give them. The friends of the bill want to secure to the farmers a home market. We want to enable them to restore each autumn or spring the vital principles of the soil extracted by each year’s crop of grain. Would you know how much Ohio paid for her British goods during the last decade? Take the cost price in gold, and add to it half the value of her w‘hcat lands. For she began the decade with 30 million bush els in 1850, and in 1860 she raised but 15 million bushels. She had sent, in addition to the money value of the imported goods she consumed, the wheat yielding principle of her acres to England to enrich the soil of that island. This question of protection is the farmer’s guestion; and the gentlemen from Iowa and Illinois plead against the interest of their grain growing constituents when they strive to compel us to consume British, French, and Bel an articles. Iplead the farmer’s cause; an be who will study the measured rewards of the farmer's labors in the constantly diminishing crops of our agricultural districts will find that they diminish in proportion to the amount of white and hard crops gathered here and shipped abroad for consumption and transmutation into manure. Here the hammer fell.]