Vermont watchman and State journal. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1836-1883, 1876-08-02

true theory duu beal pIhcllct VI hSI icuiluie'
We don't care particularly about being
called a fanatic, or a hobby rider. What
we do care about is, to see the American re-
public enjoy positive and permanent pros
perity; and we are certain that IL never can
enjoy these, unless the people thereof under
stand their business.
It is not prosperity TO be able to raid upon
a rich mansion and estate at will-to be able
to chop down the trees Of fine park for
fuel, TO split irp the doors for kindlings, or
turn the cows into the wheat and the pigs
into the corn, drink the milk Of one aud eat
The flesh of the other, and call ourselves rich.
That is what the farmers Of America have
been doing. practically, ever since the coun-
try was settled aud what they are doing
now more fercely than ever, over the rich
prairies and fine woodlands OF the West
They are just wasting and rayaging the
earth. They are acting like a band Of ma
RAIDERS in a war, who have got possession of
rich town, and are eating, burning and ship
ping off what they can lay their hands upon.
They are not doing it in the spirit of ma
rauders-not all of them-though the way
the wheatlands and timberlands are being
scalped in California, Iowa, Minnesota, Wis
consin, Michigan aud Canada, is not far
from it. Yet we eau hardly accuse a whole
people of that indifference to the future-of
that after us the dcluge " feeling that has
characterized the royal aud other brigands
Of history. 1t is ignorance, rather than the
spirit of the plunderer turned loose in tbs
midst Of seemingly unbounded wealth, that
is the matter.
So long as Ignorance is incapable of en-
lightenment, there is no use in anybodys say
ing word While the farmers Of the West
believed that the soil of the praries could
never lose its food-producing power while
the woodsmen OF the North declared the
pneries mexhaustible Of timber-a voice
crying to the contrary, in the wilderness was
voice, and nothing more.
But, lately, stern facts have come mp AN,
confronted the men engaged in this devasta
ton that, in a hundred years, has swep
across the continent from ocean to ocean
and is now busy in every valley and over tn
hilltops, wasting aud destroying the futur
means Of living of the people of this nation
Beginning on the Atlantic shore, each wav
of immigration has washed the fertility iror
wider and wider belt Of land. The wealt
of the new continent seemed inexhaustlbl
TO our fathers what do their children see
All along the eastern side the soil has grow
poorer aud poorer, till at last nultitudes q
once productive farms do not produce a ne
return of one per cent on their assessed yalu
for taxation. Among the people there
here and there one who by individual shrew,
ness, or inheritance, holds in his hands tn
money representative Of those destroye
values. This is loaned out, to satisfy tn
necessities of the nominal landowners, III
I'll the mortgage-debt lying upon our terri
tory now begins TO approach near TO il
marketable value; while this marketab
value is still being decreased by still decrea
ing fertility under the hands of the ignorar
and incompetent tillers.
At the West even the newest and richie
West, the same waste and devastation is b
coming apparent. For only very few yea
can wheat be grown to profit on the prairie
and soon the last fresh acre of sod will ha'
been turned down, and its store of accum
lated plant food wrenched out. Meanwhile
in order TO furnish money TO pay intere'
this grain, bearing.the life-blood of the Ian
flows in continual and increasing strea
across the continent and over the sea- II
railroads and ships are busy. The capital
is getting his ten per cent. on his mortgag
upon land worth, in the language OF Il
brokers, "twice the amount of the loan
getting his seven or eight per cent. on IA
road bonds, and his six or seven per cen
gold, on state and county and city bone
and the papers still tell us our wealth is
exhaustible.
Sofar from being inexhaustible, this strea
of so-called wealth, the plumber of new co
tinent, where nature, for countless centlri
has been storing up the accumulation tn
man strips away in one, has already reach
its food. Soon the ebb will begin and the
mortgaged farms will be offered for sale
the thousand with no buyers. The inter,
on the mortgages will be defaulted the ii
Of products for expectation and OF goods
return, and Of people going to and fro
emigrants 10 the new country, or rs yi,ito
coming East on borrowed money or ON
fictitious flush of prosperity will slack ava
and the railroads will earn scarcely the 4
penses of their operation. Business in t
towns will be dull money will bccoI
scarcer and scarcer states, cities, towns "A
counties win find their debts more than III
can stand under, and widespread repudiati
then becomes an absolute necessity. Is Il
frghtful prospect only imaginary Can
ever become real 1t is as sure to be SEE
with all aud worse features than we ha
portrayed, unless an intelligent, progressi,
scientific method Of agriculture can be ma
speedily TO replace that one now in opel
ton, with slight exceptions, all over Nor
America. We say worse features because
great decline in the wealth-produci
power of the land must be followed not on
by financial panic aud ruin, but by mol
wars and famine. We may laugh at I
idea Of famine in America, but famine i
fallen upon just as fruitful lands, from /,
the same cause. The prosperity of Egypt
land especially and exceptionally blessed
fertility that is really perennial under /
influence Of its life-giying river, has not
capped these penalties Of the reckless a
continual violation OF natures unchanged
laws Palestine, Persia and the Assyri
plains have long been practically desel
though once as rankly luxuriant as any p
Of America.
But do We anticipate these results as rea
before as in the near future? We do n
only because, under the gradual pinch
their approach, we expect 10 see tn
changes made which are alone capable
ayerting them. We expect TO see agric
ture become an art illuminated by scien
and thus illuminated, becoming capable