The Cecil Whig. [volume] (Elkton, Md.) 1841-current, 1871-03-11
The Cause of, aud Cure for Hard Times.

We scarce pick up all agricultural paper
that we do not find some allusion to the
problem which is engrossing the thoughts
of the advanced farmers of the Atlantic
States, which is the competition that
exists and is becoming everyday sharper,
with the West, in the products of her
farms. The innumerable lines of railroad
that everyday are bringing the markets of
our sea- board in close proximity to the fer
tile prairies, and thereby cheapening the
price of bread-stutfs, is the difficulty which
crosses the path to successful farming in
this region of country. That this cheap
cning process is permanent and likely to
improve in the wrong direction for the
interests of our grain farmers, is beyond a
doubt, to all who contemplate the matter
seriously. All agricultural writers, who
have discussed this subject, agree that the
thin and exhausted soils of the Atlantic
States cannot compete with the new, rich
lands of the West, in the production ofgrain,
and that necessity will compel our farmers
to direct their attention to the rearing of
improved stock, dairying, in it's several
branches, and the cultivation of fruits and
vegetables, where the city markets are
sufficiently near for the latter products to
be disposed Of quickly. The sooner our
farmers begin to seriously contemplate this
inevitable change in their time -honored
practice of blowing and sowing, the better :;
and those who begin first, will be the best
off, few years hence.
On the rich manor lands, in the region of
Middletown, Delaware, we learn that the
farmers pronounce grain farming a dead
failure, and they are turning their fields
into pea ch-orchards. So great is the
demand for young peach trees that all the
nurserymen have orders beyond their abil-
ity to supply.
If those rich and easily titled lands will
not compete with the West, as grain farms,
what prospect have the great majority of
the farmers on the comparatively thin,
rough lands of Cecil? Simply the poorest
conceivable.
While pursuing the old system of farm
ing, each individual is working at cross
purposes with his neighbor. AS stock and
dairy farmers, the cooperative principle
might be at once adopted with the greatest
conceivable advantage. An association of
stock-raisers could with profit pursue the
business, which no individual among them
could, for want of funds, inaugurate-
Animals of pure blood, of the breed deter
mined upon, could be procured by a joint
interest, and new ones added, as necessity
demanded !; and in few years, superior
breeds Of stock would drive out the lean
and hungry kind now SO prevalent and
Improbable. In the States north of us,
where nature denies the advantage of long
summers so necessary to the maturing of
grain crops, dairying, hay, and stock-rais-
ing have long been the principal care of
the farmers, and experience has taught
them that one factory, with the necessary
appliances for butter or cheese-making, is
great improvement, in point of economy
and profit, over the old diffuse way of hay
ing every farm fitted up, in a small way,
for manufacturing its own milk into butter
and cheese. Now one factory receives the
milk from number Of farms, and by this
means the labor is systematized, and the
product is of greatly improved quality,
as compared with the old system. When
our farmers consent to give up their old
routine and adopt the new order of things,
they will begin to prosper; but chronic
srumbling at hard times, low prices and
poor crops will avail them nothing.