Nashville union and American. [volume] (Nashville, Tenn.) 1868-1875, 1871-11-17

L
they come from sources the most feeble and
inadequate. As an example, let me quote
from the city article of the London Times,
Which reached me as was preparing this
address. That paper, you know, deyotes
daily nearly half broadside to matters OF
finance, trade and commerce, and the num-
Der before me contains a long letter from
Mark Lane correspondent s'on the present
position of the grain trade, and the prospects
Of the approaching haryests in England"
This dealer looks TO me like merchant who
wants to buy and would, therefore, like TO
see prices little lower. At any rate, be
states that the bulk of grain and -four on
hand was then about ten millions bushels,
and prices ruled high; that there was d heet
of All grain-laden ships then at sea and all
bound for England; that the maize market
was in feverish state, owing to the uncer-
tainty as othe extent of supplies from this
country; and then, with the assistance of
the HdrUeSt journal, he attempts to fore
cast the English crop of III. The HdrreSt
! Journal forecasts from such information as
il can pick up from farmers; and Mr..
Kaines Jackson, the Times correspondent,
supplements it with his own observations,
made during ga tramp of ten miles, in the
country. Now mind you; here is not an
expert, not farmer, but city merchant,
who, from interested motives, perhaps, but
at any rate from observations wholly insu-
| fficient, undertaking to forecast the wheat
crop Of all England, and publishing his pre-
dictions where they are liable to influence
prices even here.
Now suppose that you were TO see man,
after "a tramp Of ten Hsilesin the country"
from Memphis, pretending TO forecast the
corn crop of Tennessee and Kentucky-fOr
these two States are not much larger than
| England-what would you think of his ac-
curacy? Would you like to depend upon
such figures for the price you are to get? a
Well, let us look at the cockney's ear
marks for a crop. He argues in favor of
! good crop from the stiffness of the stem, the
shortness of the straw and the compactness
| of the ear and color, in connection with
what he had heard farmer say the day be-
| fore, who chad two stacks of different har-
vests, one a large, the other relatively
/ small stack-the latter produced 135-the
other only 70 quarters" a
From such sources of information as this,
1 forecasts are made concerning all the staple
crops upon which the husbandman expends
his labor; upon such forecasts, prices are
fixed, and the producers have to take what
they can get; and upon such sources of in
formation you now depend for the price you
are TO get for all your crops that are stand
ing in the fields or gathered in your barns.
This is good for the spectators, many of
whom annually make far more out of your
crops than you do yourselves.
This letter-not because We know any,
thing of Kaines Jackson, the writer, or Of
the newspaper called the "HdrueSt Journal"
but because Sampson, who writes the money
| articles of the Times, takes it up, endorses
it, and publishes it in that journals read,
and its purport retailed upon all the corn
exchanges of the country, and prices influ-
enced accordingly.
Now mark:-these estimate were made
in the beginning of August, when American
wheat was just beginning to 90 forward,
and when It had TO encounter the cargOes
of All grain laden ships already on their
way to market stocked with 10000 900
bushels of wheat, and backed by buyers es-
innate of most abundant harvest. OF
course prices ruled low, and now when
many of you have sold, what has become
of that abundant English harvest? Mr..
Lewes,o ne Of the greatest authorities there,
now comes out with an estimate, showing
that the present crop in England will fall
short Of English consumption at least eleven
and half millions of quarters, which, at
sixty shillings, is worth upwards Of $780,
100000.
An English paper, while confessing that
this short crop is to tell fearfully upon the
social history of the year-for short har
vest always lowers the marriage rate there,
and checks increase of pOpulatiOn-fnds
consolation in the reflection that
John Bulls gamers will be surely replen-
ished from abroad. ''Corn, it says, "will
come to us from the prairies of Illinois and
Iowa; from Russian steppes and Tartar
river banks; from Baltic end Black Sea
granaries; from San Francisco and places
more distant STILL
How are the crops in those distant places?
We know not still the price American
grain is to fetch in England is to be gov
erned by the yield in those countries.
We know already that the crop in France
is short. Now, suppose American grain
growers had been possessed of Lewes' in
formation two months ago-and these reso-
buttons, had they been in operation, would
have given it-what would it have been
worth to the country? Something more
than twenty cents on every bushel of
wheat that has been sold between July and !
October.
Under the system now proposed, wemay
expect the promise and the yield of
every staple crop throughout the world
to be forecast as accurately as an obseTyant !
farmer can do it for his own neighborhood. |
Some will over-estimate, while others will
underestimate, but that will be ike the |
personal equation among astronomers, !
which SdUdnS will know how to eliminate
so as to get at accurate results. If you ad-
NIT that true estimates may be made for
one neighborhood, why not for all 1t only
remains to bring them together, and the APP
pliances of the age furnish the ready means
for doing that.
Now, remember that agriculture is the
great source and fountain of prosperity,
wealth and power of this country and the
world that weighed with it, mining and
manufactures, fishing and seafaring, naviga-
ton and commerce, are but as straws in the
balance. Calculate and see what sums of
money your government is and has been eX-
pending, for generations, in the shape of
duties and tariffs and protection, direct and
indirect, for the benefit and encouragement
of those industries, and how little for yours.
You don't ask as much for this great inter
est as is given annually for fishing bounties
from the public treasury alone.
Surely, considering the progress that has
Deen ana is now making In pnySlcal re-
search and scientific discovery, it is not
much out of the way to ask the government
50 TO direct these discoveries and researches,
and so to encourage them, that you, too
in your husbandry may have the benefit of
them.
= The statistics Of the Corn Exchange, New
York show that from the first to the middle of
August, the price of wheat ranged from S1.i0 TO
Sl.32 per sixty pounds, for No. 2, and from Sl.33
to 81 80 for No. and on the Goth of September
No. brought S1.50@l.5l, No. being then worth
Sl.55. 1t is now (Oct ~ quoted at Sl.60@lT2.
IRON FOR PEAR TRHES.
A correspondent of the Rural Messenger
writes as follows:
81 had a very fine pear tree Flemish
Beauty that became affected, first By blight
in one limb, which / removed, and then an
other and another was affected in the same
way, until had removed a considerable
portion Of the top of the tree. Early the
next spring resolved to try the application
/ of scrap iron TO the roots. / procured my
| iron, removed the soil from the roots care
! fully, deposited the iron between them, and