The Daily state journal. [volume] (Alexandria, Va.) 1868-1874, 1871-07-03
THE FACTORY AND THE FARM.

buy at once all the lana you are likely
to want for, the moment your factory is
established, real estate will rise in price all
around you from twenty-five to fifty
per cent" Such is the advice given by
the Virginia State Agent of Immigration to
a gentleman proposing to undertake the
culture and manufacture of silk in that
State. That such advance of price is not
altogether speculative, but is based on
actual enhancement of value, is a matter
well understood, and one that has been
plainly illustrated by political economists
from Adam Smith to the best authorities of
our own day. The introduction of manu-
features into agricultural communities
brings together the essential elements of
wealth-producing enterprise, establishing
the shortest circuit of communication.
This is in accordance not only with the
laws of political economy but of that higher
order whereby nature conducts the COM
merce of the material world. The farmer
and manufacturer each have needs which
the other supplies /; and to bring the two
into such close connection that exchanges
can be made with the least possible cost, is
a saving that must commend itself to the
dullest mind. If our grain can be bartered
for cloth made within sight of the field
where it grew, that is plainly better deal
than sending the same grain to Liverpool to
pay for fabrics woven iii Yorkshire.
The factory adds value TO the farm by af-
fording home market. A home market
saves the charges, risks, and waste of long
carriage, the profits Of intervening traders,
and interest ON delayed returns, and gives
merchantable worth to products that will
not pay such charges. Better still, a home
market is sure market, little subject to the
fluctuations incident to foreign demand
Regular home consumption steadies prices,
drives out speculation, and gives to inteli-
gent forethought a basis for reasonable cal
culation.
When on the right side of the road, adj
vantage favors us at every turn. We go
with the current, and all movement is in
our direction every incident of the way is
n help; so the progress of manufactures,
side by side with agriculture, beside the
gain we have cited, brings diversity of pur-
suits, stimulates industry and invention,
raises the standard of intelligence, attracts
desirable immigration, and promotes in
many ways the welfare of the community.
We consider the prospect of the immediate
future most hopeful in that it promises the
cotemporaneous development of these two
great interests in our new territory.
Our Pacific railroads, penetrating the
wilderness in advance Of immigration, make
it possible to occupy the new lands with all
the arts Of civilization, in simultaneous
movement. The scream of the locomotive
is death-signal to the pioneer of the
Misunderstanding type, more fateful than
the war-whoop Of the savage. The simple
virtues and rough chiyalry Of Cooper's hero
are passing away forever, and the class of
grain-farmers who followed the pioneer, we
assume, must follow him still. Our move
ment westward has been characterized by
rude society struggling with the hardships of
semi-barbarous life at first deprived of
every comfort-later, obtaining even some
luxuries, but shipping off, to pay for them,
the very cream of the soil, leaving State
after State exhausted of their corn and
wheat-produeing elements.
The South, too, under slavery. was sub
jected to a wasteful system of agriculture,
and was stripped of fertility by the export
of a few staple products. We can now
hopS W w pSetSi eiittit tiiiS. liz tcOutls
as well as the West, has still vast areas of
virgin soil. Thanks mainly to facilities of
transportation afforded by our rapidly ex-
tending railroads, the settlement of those
new lands will be made under more bene-
ficent order. Organized colonization, open
ing farms with one hand, building factories
with the other; planting producer and con-
sumner, the farmer and the manufacturer,
side by side-this is the potent agent now
inaugurating the better plan of immigration,
and developing, we trust, higher form of
civilization.
st will cost you bushel Of wheat to
send another bushel to New York market,n
was the observation lately made to Min
nesota colonist. "We don't propose TO
send our wheat to New York." was the
confident reply /; 1--WE are putting up mills
TO grind our wheat for home consumption"
In that sentence we hear the keynote of
American progress.-N. Y. Tribune.