Worcester daily spy. [volume] (Worcester [Mass.]) 1850-1888, 1858-01-15
ORCEsTER UAfLAz

ZINES AND PROSPECTS IN THE WRsT.-Hor-
ace Greeley, in his letters from the West, to
the Tribune, has the following, under date
Of Chicago. Jan. 4:
g have been travelling in Michigan, nli-
nois and Wisconsin for some days past, max.
ing inquiries and taking notes with regard to
commercial and financial aspects and pros
poets. l have endeavored to CLEAN informa-
ton from all available sources and, while it
is undoubtedly true that travelling inquirers
generally see and hear what they were pre-
disposed to find, believe can sum up what
have heard as irnpartially as the next man.
| proceed, then, to record my impressions.
l. Payment.-Of the New York and other
Eastern jobbers l have met looking after
their debts and debtors throughout this re-
| gion, have found no one who estimated the
| average proportion Of the mercantile debts
past due from the West to the East, which
may be collected this Winter, above twenty
i've per cent, while the usual estimate is de-
oidedly below this. One merchant, who has
been eleven weeks in active circulation, con.
sdeesd ttosiVe per cent. q liberal estimate
All agree that TO attempt TO force oollsstions
by legal process is sheer folly. The people
will not bid on their neighbors' property ex-
posed to sale on execution; and, If they
were willing to bid, they have no money
wherewith to pay. Country merchants, if
crowded, assign to some friend or friends, and
then offer to pay fifty cents or so on the dol
lar-when they can. Nearly all these mer-
chants show assets in the shape Of book ac-
counts and goods on bond, mainly the for
mer; but neither can be converted into money
very rapidly. Generally, the creditors agree
to take the 6fty per cent. or whatever may be
offered, and let the debtor go on with his
business in order to collect the aforesaid fifty
per cent. which come will succeed in doing,
while others will not. A good many will
wind up, and more ought to. Ultimately,
about fifty per cent. of the mercantile debt
now due may be collected. l Judge that the
aggregate demand for dry goods throughout
the North West in 1858 will not be more
that half that of 1856 or 1857, restricted as
were the fall purchases of the latter year.
STILL if the seaboard jobbers want to run off
on credit any amount of silks, delaines,
cloths, &c, &C., do not doubt that they can
lind persons willing to take them.
2. The Farmers are poor. They have gen.
orally good crops, and their farms are better
stocked than hitherto; but they paid high
prices for the labor required to make and Sc
cure those crops, and must now sell them for
less than half the prices they confidently ex-
BNSNNA
region, will not average fifty cents per bushel
at the farmers DOORS which after deductng
the cost of harvesting at twenty shillings per
day, and of threshing and cleaning, leaves
but moderate balance to the grower-con-
siderably less than So per acre for land, fenc.
ing, seed, blowing, sowing, sc. Very few
farmers can buy their daughters silk dresses
and fashionable bonnets out of that; and it
Is no easier paying for those bought last year
IN the fond anticipation of selling wheat this
winter at ten or twelve shllings per bushel.
Wheat is worth today in this city but fifty.
six cents per bushel or a little less than one
cent per pound; corn but thirty cents per
bushel of sixty pounds, or half cent per
pound. l was told in WATERFOWL, Wisson.
sin, last week, that corn in the ear was of.
fered there at eleven cents the bushel (of earsl
good measure. Meats sell better Hogs at
three to four dollars per hundred live weight,
or four to five dollars dressed. throughout the
North. West. Beet cattle are worth from
three to four dollars per hundred, live weight
On so fertile a soil as that of the praries,
farmers can live at such prices bur paying
old store debts, contracted in flush times ie
slow work. The general expectation that
prices must improve, at all events on the
opening of Spring, tends to keep wheat in
- >' StiN eotn Al thS Cow anu PaEalyHes
. efforts to rid the country of the incubus of
debt. hear of few townships in which
the merchants and farmers resolved, az early
as October, to get out of debt if possible so
the latter threshed out their wheat at once,
hurried it to the merchants, and squared UP
their accounts, while the merchants pushed
toward the produce as rapidly as possible, to
the seabord and paid off their pressing iabili-
ties, 50 that they are now under easy sail to-
gether. Of course, they realized at least
twenty-five per cent more for their wheat
than it viii now command. Had five thou
sand townships pursued this course, instead
OF perhaps forty or fifty, our canals, railroads,
merchants, laborers. and nearly everybody
else. would hare been sensibly benefited