Meigs County telegraph. [volume] (Pomeroy [Ohio]) 1848-1859, 1859-09-06
FOod-Prices and Demand.

The west Is gOrgeo Win 1000, anO YET
pines for the means of life. She has just
capped most magnificent harvest, and
yet is without spare dollar in her pocket.
| There is no end to her produce; nor any
end apparently TO her destitution. She is
in want of the very first of all civilized
necessities. We don't mean bread, for
the savage also needs that. but market.
She knows not whele to send her wheat.
Europe has enough of her own. The Mid
die States have as much as they care for.
Cold New England which cannot grow it,
will require some, and so will the hot
South, but nothing like the quantity the
West would be glad to dispose Of. There
| is no demand corresponding to the supply,
neither will there be, we fhncy n time TO
come, except in occasional years, when eK-
traordinary causes operate abroad, like war
or signally bad weather. In ordinary
years, the quantity of wheat Europe will
want from the West will be but mere
handful to what the West is able to fur
nish. The demand abroad, since the ports
of Great Britain were thrown open to its
free admission, has not increased in any
thing like the ratio of the increase of
supply, nor will it in the future.
What then has the West to do? First,
she must make up her mind to sell for
lower prices, and do what she can in this
way to enlarge her market both at home
and abroad. Wheat is no exception 10 the
general rule that cheapness promotes de-
mand. AS prices fall, consumption inev-
itably increases. And the price Of wheat
must continue to fall, for the West is every
year enlarging her limits, bringing new
land under cultivation, and furnishing
new supplies. 1t is as idle for Ohio and
Illinois to hope to keep up wheat to the
old standard as it was forty years ago. for
South Carolina and Georgia to look for a
continuance of the old rates for cotton
when the States beyond were filling up
with planters. Moreover, there
are other causes, besides the extending
area Of cultivation, at work to lower the
price of .wheat-particularly the almost
universal use into which reaping machines
and thrashing machines and all the i'm
proved agricultural implements of the day
are rapidly coming throughout the great
agricultural region of the North Vest
One Of these machines can do the work of
ten OF fifteen men, and they are completely
revolulionizing the old order of things
when labor was the chief element in the
cost of production. The steam plow,
which has been recently brought to great
perfection, will soon, there IS every reason
to believe, be introduced into the western
prairies, and will prove another most pow
erlul auxiliary in saving labor and cheap
ening production. The West, then, must
reconcile herself to the necessity of low
prices for her great commercial staple, and
not only for this year, but for all ordi-
nary years hereafter.
Yet there is mode of putting limit
to this downward tendency Of gain, and
but one; and that is by enlarging and
Strengthening the home market. The
loom and the anvil must be recognized as
the natural allies Of the plough and the
harrow. The mechanic arts and manu-
tactures open new spheres of employment,
and gather masses Of population who have
need of the products of the farmer, and.
through their own productive industry
are able to pay good prices for the same.
A foreign market not only involves the
loss consequent upon distant transporta-
ton, but it is at best very limited and very
variable, for there is not nation in Europe
which does not make it point to raise its
own breadstuffs from it's own soil. The
West in this respect is very differently
situated from the South. The latter has
virtually monopoly in her great staple;
and other nations have no ,shome growth
with which to make themselves indepen-
dent of her. 1t is Of comparatively little
consequence-though we think Of more
consequence than she imagines-whether
she has home market or not; for she is
sure of foreign market. The West has
no such assurance. The custom Europe
accords 10 her is at best but contracted and
precarious. A home market is her only
substantial dependence.
The time is not far distant when she
Will lcdlIAc Iulb do DIG HAD ucNcT ytU UOUos
The great body of her Representatives and
Senators have hitherto acted in opposition
to all measures calculated to protect and
foster the arts and manufactures of their
own section and the country at large
They have been accustomed TO regard free
trade in wheat as the summune 6onum of
their industrial life, ard have believed that
the barometer of their prosperity and ad-
versity hung nowhere but in Mark Lane.
Hard experience, is, we trust, gradually
curing the West Of this great mistake
She is learning the lesson that without the
advantages ofa large mechanical and man.
ufacturing population in her own midst,
or at least near at hand, as consumers, the
demand for her products must be small in
proportion to her supply, and that she is
constantly drained of her gold by paying
for manufactured goods which she must
have, and yet can pay for IN no other way.
She is fast finding that she will thrive best
in and with the thrift of her own kith and
kin.
AFFRAY AT BLUE L1cKs.-An affray oc-
| cured at the Blue Lick Sprinps. Kentucky.