Tama County Republican. (Toledo, Tama County, Iowa) 1867-1872, 1870-01-13
From the Piusburg (pa.) Gazette.
Tribute Paid by the West.

Tie Error Of Western fdrmer&-The Benefit Of
Horne Market-D,rersity Of Industry Essen>
tial to ProsQeri'y-TA, Necessity Of Agricus-
ta-is.,, Etc.
The adaptability OF various portions
Of the Great West-or the great cen
tire, as it may more properly be called
forth many productions AMI industries
essential to an advanced civilization is
not yet by any means discovered and
proiited by. People soon discover, it
is true, where wheat can be grown to
the most advantage, and push that par
tlcular branch OF industry; or they find
the soil and climate better adapted to
corn, and cultivate that crop ON ali
enormous scale, to the neglect OF 9th.
ers.
The unsurpassed fertility of the great
new States in the Central Basin has
led to a careless and reckless style OF
husbandry. Breadth, rather than thor
onghness, is what is aimed at; and most
OF the farmers OF the prairie States are
drawing upon the immense fertility OF
their soil as spendthriit uses an estate,
INTO the possession OF which he may hap
pen to come, seemingly intent upon
squandering it as fast as he can. Thus
almost every thing that grows, except
what may be shipped Off by rail and
sold in the cities, instead OF being care
fully husbanded and returned to the soil,
Is recklessly burned or cast into some
stream.
The notion seems to prevail out
there that the deep black soil can new
| er be exhausted; but this is a great
and will soon be felt TO be most cost
" mistake. True the depth and dark
ness of color will remain, but the life
aud spirit OF that soil can be, and is
being rapidly exhausted, as the poor
feeble growth OF corn and even weeds
upon many of the fields OF Illinois at
tests. Tho farmers there grow too
much corn, too much wheat, and too
little OF other productions-too many
hogs and not enough sheep. There is
too much farming, but not enough OF
other industries carried on. The pco-
pie OF that State have been growing
rich during the past few years. but not
as rapidly as they suppose; tor it the
draft they are making upon their soil
is persisted in tor another generation
there will be, as there is in the slave
cursed South, abandoned plantations
and new migratlons to find fresh soil.
What the West wants is greater di.
versity OF industries; more concentra-
ton of interests; markets at home and
not in Chicago, New York and Europe.
They want more short and less long
railway transportation. They want
markets at home for much OF what
they produce, from wheat topumpklns
and straw; and IN order to have these
they must have manufacturers and fab
rieators of thousand things OF daily
use among themselves. 1t is an evil
dence OF an unwholesome state OF
things, to say nothing OF some things
more important, that an Illinois or
Missouri floor should be swept with a
broom manufactured on the banks OF
Connecticut, and that the wool
OF an Iowa sheep should be car
ried by rail 1900 miles 10 be man.
utactured into cloth, and then carried
Lack the same distance, to cover the
limbs of the man who raised and
sheared the sheep.
The truth is, where such tribute is
paid to carriers. as must necessarily be
by people almost exclusively agricul,u-
raj, there can be no permanent PROS
perity; and as soon rs the soil, upon
which the people flourish tor while,
shall give way, as 1t soon must, no
matter how fertile it may lie, poverty
OF the worst kind must enSue. While
recently travelling through some OF the
finest portions OF the West, these re.
Elections passed painfully through our
mind; and we could not but regard
these growers OF corn crops, across
whose broad acres the eye could hard
ly sweep, as so many spcndthrifts reck-
lessly sauandering aud running the lin
est heritage that God ever gave to his
CHILDREN III this world.
No country where agriculture large
~ preponderaled over, other industries,
none whose producers Of food mad 10
seek markets in distant regions, ever
did prosper; and the same will be true
of the States lying west of us unless
they quickly introduced non producing
population large enough to balance to
some good degree the now excessive
|prepoIderancc OF their one great indus
try.