The Daily state journal. [volume] (Alexandria, Va.) 1868-1874, 1873-08-07

,,o,,s 80. 'iNoi''s, esAiPfo JuStice 10 UT
loaded tables.
: NJ N. W. PETERSON, Secretary.
ADDRESS TO THE WOODLAND FAR
MERs' CLUB.
Friends Another year has rolled around
since our last anniversary meeting. The
Woodlawn farmers club of Virginia, and
nearly, i not quite, every member has
voluntarily adopted Virginia as his home,
and his field of operations, and cast his
destinies with her. for good or for evil.
say he has chosen Virginia as his home,
and not come into it by accident of birth, as
many others have done, and which they could
not avoid, not having the power OF choice.
The fact of voluntarily adopting this as our
future home makes it needful, nay, impor-
tant to look around us and see what the
present circumstances are; also what they
are capable of being made, and also how
nearly we have worked these circumstances
up to their highest point; also to consider
and work out the problem whether. we
have, or may by proper exertion, bettered
ourselves by our choice of location in an
agricultural point of view, for it is agricul-
turists that the present essay is intended to
reach. 1t is very common method of
Judging of things by comparison; indeed it
is with most people the only safe way of
coming to correct judgment in matters Of
this kind. We will compare then our new
home of Virginia with prosperous New
England in general, and with Massachusetts,
in particular. iaa25 sa h5
A recent writer says that little Massa-
chusetts, with tenth of the soil of Vir-
ginia, (alluding to the whole state before the
division into east and wesD, and in no wise
to be compared to her in fertility or eli
mate, is rapidly gaining on Virginia in point
OF numbers and power, and sending away
out Of her prolific hive thousands at the
same time to populate the west. 1t cannot
be for the want of great men, for Virginia
has had more great men than all New
England united. Without great men to
manage her affairs, the affairs of New Eng
land seem to manage themselves. That
country, so thriving, SO out of debt, so pros
porous. has, we are told, no great men.
nor any little men they seem to be
all alike, as bullets from the same mould.
and all shooting ahead. The people have the
sagacity to facilitate the views Of those who
have capital to lend. Ii a man have ten
dollar note he can buy stock with it. within
the smoke OF: his own chimney, and put it
at interest. And within the same dis
lance any sindustrious man can borrow
money to give activity to his genius and
his industry. There is not farm that has
not within very short distance nom
producing consumers of agricultural pro-
duce. ready to buy the smallest thing that
can be made on it for sale. A man NAV
engage for certain a purchaser for the
butter yet in his cows udder, and the eggs
he knows his hens will lay in the morning.
These thrifty Yankees have made more
railroads than any other people in the
world, and rs for manufactures. besides
supplying enough of them to consume
every peck of apples and every string of
onions that can be made in the state. SO
that no capital need be laying dead in an
acre of waste land in the state. One
trouble is there are too many producers
for the number Of consumers. A vast
proportion of our labor is consumed in the
wear and tear and cost of exchanging it
for what we get in return. We want the
manufacturers right here, handy
10 U.S., that we may exchange
with the hundreds and thousands of opera
tives as they do in New England, where
all are thriving, and, all out of debt. In
1910 the proportion employed in the New
England states was tout of 100 in agricul-
ture 72:8, commerce6 Ga manufactures 81. Tn
1910, twenty years afterward, the proportion
employed in agriculture had diminished
from 72:s to 66:7. while those employed in
manufactures had increased from ri to 800.
In that year QS40) in the six New England
states. for every sixty-six persons en-
ployed in agriculture, there were close
along side of them thirty manufacturers,
ready to consume whatever they had to
sell-apint of raspberries or pound of but
ter, a gallon Of milk or gallon Of cherries,
and ready at the same time to buy their
wool, and supply them with coats. to buy
their raw hides and supply them with
shoes here's one and there's the other, no
time lost in exchanges. The New England
farmer spends all his time, keeps all his
manure, on his farm.
In the southern states, the proportion
employed in agriculture is 80, with liz in
commerce and S:3 in manufactures as
purchasers of agricultural produce.
In one section about two pro-
ducers for one consumer in the
other, eleven for one. In one the producer
and consumer close together, or connected
by the very best Of roads, in the other far
apart, exchanging at q great cost OF time
ard I'll i ..S.<s.