Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1880-08-14
RAILROADS AND FOOD SUPPLIES.

MIR. EDWARD Atkinson mas very inter-
esting and suggestive paper in the last
number of the Fortnightly Reuie,o on the
effects of the railroads of the United States
upon farming in this country and Great
Britain. He shows how the recent growth
of the Western railroad system, and the
coincident development of the great West
ern grain and stock products, have gra-
dually compelled corresponding changes in
the agriculture of New England and the
Eastern States. How the steadily growing
economy of transportation has forced
the supplanted States to adopt more
varied line Of production. How they have
abandoned corn and stock, and taken to
raising vegetables, fruits, dairy products,
poultry, etc. And how the condition of
the Eastern farmer has been greatly i'm
proved by these changes so forced upon
him, which he never would have made if
left to himself and which he at first
thought would result in his ruin. But the
chief interest of Mr. Atkinson's exhibits
lies in the fact that the same arguments
apply with equal force to the farmer on
the other side of the Atlantic Old England
is in the same category with New England,
in fact. The great Northwest has already
supplanted her in the production of grain
and the raising of stock, aud the growing
economy of transportation has done the
rest. Wheat can now be laid down at
Liverpool from the far West at prices with
which the British farmer is unable to COM
pete. Cattle can be transported as far,
either in the hoof or in the form of frozen
meat, and again defy competition.
And it is impossible that this state
of things should be overcome by
the English farmer and stock-raiser. The
question of the different tenure of land in
the two countries is of itself sufficient to
determine the odds against England, but
the extent of territory available in the
West, and the consequent magnitudeof the
operations engaged in, constitute equally
important factors, and render it impos-
sible that any readjustment of the balance
should be effected. Mr.. Atkinson is there
fore no doubt right in predicting that the
English farmers will have to follow the ex-
ample of the New England agriculturists,
abandon wheat and stock-raising and turn
their attention TO dairy products, vegeta-
bles, fruit, etc., which afford better re-
turns, and in the cultivation of which dis
lance is fatal handicap to success. This
change of occupations, however, cannot be
effected until radical alteration in the
land tenure of England has taken place.
1t is necessary for success in the pursuits
named that the cultivators should own the
land, as they do in the Eastern States of the
Union for the greater part. 1t is that
ownership Of the soil which has there
made success possible, and this must be
equally condition of any prosperous un-
dertaking in the same direction. The
certainty that the Western States of this
continent must hereafter, for some time at
least, furnish very large proportion of
the worlds supply of bread and meat,
seems indeed established, and the only
thing to be done is for the nations which
find their occupations gone to accept the
situation, and betake themselves to avooa-
tions which are still remunerative. 1t is
also interesting to note that this portentous
change could not have been brought about
in several centuries but for the almost
magical extension of railroad facilities
throughout the West. To those railroads
the Western producers owe all their pros
perity, the Eastern producers owe their
increased success in altered cultivation,
and it is due to them also that the food
supply of the world is SO rapidly falling
into the hands of America.