Ashtabula telegraph. (Ashtabula, Ohio) 1874-1880, 1879-04-11
Remed, for Low Prices.

FARM produce is now very low.
Grain, meat, butter, pork and cheese
are as low, If notlower, than at any ume
within our memory, especially pork
and cheese With the average produc-
ton there is no profit and scarcely OF
dinary laborer's wages for the farmer,
not TO mention interest on MS caplLal-
Those farmers only who have grown
unusually large crops are able to show
aDy actual profit on their business, and
it Is very evident that it is only by
growing larger crops than we do now
that agriculture can be made profita-
Bile. The common idea that larger
products than are now grown cannot
find q market is unfOunded. It is an
astonishing fact that consumption
seems to be practically unlimited when
the prices of products are low enough.
This fact is well illustrated Just now in
the vast amount of pork, bacon and
lard that are disposed of, and also by
the wonderfully enlarged consumption
of corn in Europe at the present low
prices. The effect of the enormous in
crease of our foreign business that has
been stimulated by low prices for the
past two or three years is shown by the
condition of our export trade; the bal
ance of exports over imports for the
ten months of the present year, ending
Nov. l, being no less than S270, ,000, 900.
It is to this more than to anything else
that the present healthful prospect of
business for the coming year is due. If,
then, our foreign markets are practical
" unlimited, when we can supply them
at certain prices, and we can compete,
under these conditions. with all other
Nations, it is certainly to our advantage
to regulate our business accordingly,
and to produce as much as we can, as
cheaply as we can. To do this we
must increase the products of each
acre; not so much to enlarge the area
under cultivation, but to make the
present area produce twice or three
times as much as it has hitherto done.
To do this is difficult, but it is not
impossible. The present average Of
our farm crops is very low, and only
about One-third of what is possible.
The average management of farm busi-
ness as regards stock, economy of feed
ing, making and using manure, the
employment of artificial feeding sub
stances and especially in the use of ar
tificial fertilizers, is rarely as effective
as it might be. There are some varie-
ties of stock that are the most profita-
BILE under certain circumstances only,
and we have as yet only partially
learned how to adapt varieties to cir
cumstances. It is rare that the right
stock is found in the right place pre-
cisely; and to prove that this is true, it
is necessary only to refer to the in
stance of dairying, in which scarcely
two persons are agreed as to which
class of cows is the best for this busi-
ness; and there must be one that is
best, rs matter of course. This is a
matter upon which, unfortunately. no
precise information can be given; but.
nevertheless, it Is certain that to know
more about it is of great Importance.
So with feeding our stock we are at
diSagreements. There are advocates
of this or that method of feeding,
and, strangely enough, when, after
some years of discussing this question,
we had settled down to the practice
of cutting and grinding feed as a meas
ure of economy, there now comes " an
undoubted authority /" foreign
parts" too, to give eclat to his new
notions who declares that long ,
and straw and unground graiT
should be fed, and that it is
feed cut fodder and grind
And some farmers, who
led astray by strange
lose fodder and
ohonc-