Clarksville weekly chronicle. (Clarksville, Tenn.) 1873-1890, 1874-07-18
TOWNS AS HOME MARKETS.

The people Of Memphis are arriving
at the wise conclusion, that they have
relied too long upon commerce alone,
to build up their city. We know of
one other town that has suffered from
the same error, having relied upon a
single branch Of trade which does not
add dollar to its material prosperity,
nor an individual to its permanent
population. Agricultural communi-
ties are beginning to learn that the cul-
tivation of single staple, however
important to commerce, retards, instead
of enhancing the prosperity of the
section devoted thereto, and this prac
tical lesson is teaching the additional
truism, that no people can become
prosperous and powerful without first
being self-sustaining. However wide
ly the business pursuits of town and
country may differ, the same law of
progressive wealth and population, APP
plies to both-that law is diversity of
pursuits, home market for home pro-
ducts, and home patronage of every
species of industry whereby the wants
of the great body of the people may
be cheaply supplied. The time was
when the adventitious aids of local.
ties built up towns and cities, but now,
that artificial channels of commerce
have equalized localities and ad-
vantages, towns must rely for their fu-
ture growth, upon industries, the skill
of mechanics and the amount and util-
ity of machinery they put in motion.
Where there are no we'll ordered tan
neries and their adjuncts, boot and
shoe shops, on an ample scale, the con-
sumers in town and country must rely
upon distant factories for supplies, and
experience has proven that second
hand trade in these commodities add
to their cost to consumers without any
equivalent addition to the population
and wealth of the town.
The fallacy of this trade theory is
fast becoming apparent to all classes,
and the time is not distant, when the
towns must supply the wants of the
contiguous country, or consent to be
erased from the MAPS A home market
is of prime importance to agricultural
districts-a market in which the far
mers can either barter or sell their
surplus products and procure, on
the same terms, whatever they need
for family consumption, or tillage of
their farms. To erect such home
market, town must enter upon the
manufacture of such articles as the
farmers must have-a policy which
will not only secure its own prosperity,
but the population-the consumers of
agricultural products, which will con-
stitute hone market, and build up
mutual dependence of town and coun-
try and mutual prosperity which is
the solid basis of material wealth and
political power Unless this policy of
mutual dependence and mutual supply
is acted upon, there can be no mutual
patronage and sympathy, they must go
abroad for supplies whilst the town
ekes out languid existence upon what
it can pick up, here and there, in the
second hand sale of the surplus and
inferior productions of other commu-
mites. One of the developments of
this wide departure from the laws of
trade, is the Granger movement. The
farmers, having found that the towns
are unwilling or unable to supply their
wants, except at second hand, and are
making no efforts to build up home
market, have, therefore, resolved to do
as capital does, and buy of first hands
and save what middle-men make, at
their expense. The tyranny of capital
in its dealings with labor, has made
this policy a necessity, and unless that
tyranny is overthrow, and the towns
resolve to pursue wiser policy to-
wards the country and themselves,
they must be content with the dignity
of being mere railroad stations, or
fossil remains of the age of CONNER
cial folly.
Our correspondent at McAllister's
Cross Roads sends us the following
items:
The people in this neighborhood are
nearly done threshing wheat and the
crop turns out very well.
On the evening of the 18th inst,
mother Nancy BatsOn, 6S years of age,
stepped out of the door of her dwell
ing and saw rattlesnake at the bot
tom step, She procured a piece of
iron few feet long, lying near by, and
Immediately dispatched his snakeship
in short order. He had five or six
rattles.
There is not over ten acres of tObac-
co planted in my neighbOrhood.
Ten red foxes have been killed about
here within two weeks, and more live
Z onoS loft than we want
| Forward corn is bound to be cut
short
Mrs. K. d. Proctor died on the 18th
inst, of consumption. She left a
mother and brother to mourn her loss.
On her death bed she commenced
twitching her fingers, and being asked
what she was doing, she replied
Don't You see the two angels on the
bed? am writing their names on their
backs so | may know them again.
This statement is certainly true.
H., "A