The Pulaski citizen. [volume] (Pulaski, Tenn.) 1866-current, 1882-06-15

Manufacturing Helps the Farmer.

Manufacturing Helps the Farmer.
The national advantage of broad
Iy diversified industries, and the
local advantages to farmers and
manufacturers arising from their
close proximity, were set forth
with rare directness and cogency
by the Hon. Charles NJ. Shelley, of
Alabama, in recent speech in the
house of representatives, in the
course ofwhich he said:
A community which is blessed
with these diversified industrial en-
terprises acquires wealth rapidly,
and the temporary failure of one
branch of industry does not bring
that distress and suffering that
comes from failure when you de
pend entirely upon a single indus
try, such as agriculture. The ag-
riculturist who has a manufactur-
err for a neighbor is encouraged to
grow every variety of crop that the
soil is capable of pro ducing. A
market is found at his door for his
product, and as these neighbors are
multiplied the demand for his pro
ducts is increased. This increased
demand stimulates the price, which
reacts upon the farmer, who i'm
proves and stimulates his land to
increased production, and so on,
each acting upon the other, until
the highest productive capacity is
reached in both agriculture and
manufacturing. The farmer may
have to pay higher prices for his
goods, but he is able to do so be-
cause he sells his own products for
higher prices and has more to sell.
A large proportion of the products
of the farm will not bear transport
tation to distant market. These
products, which in many instances
could be grown without any addi-
tional cost to the farmer, would not
be grown if they could not be sold
at their doors.
To show the full force of this
point call attention to the condi-
ton of the farming class in Penn
sylvania and contrast it with the
farming class in Alabama. In Penn
sylvania where the manufacturing
interests have reached high de-
gree of development, the farmers
are thrifty and well-to-do. Every
year they make a support and
something over, which surplus is
invested in the stocks of these man
ufacturing enterprises, from which
they draw regular dividends, and
thus become to a large extent the
beneficiar!es of this very system of
protection which the free trader
assuming to speak for the farmer
denounces in such strong language.
The profits Of the factory added to
the profits of the farm grow from
year to year until the poor farmer,
whose pitiable condition is so pa
thetically portrayed by the. anti
tariff politician, rejoices in the accu-
mutation of a substantial fortune,
and his little farm of twenty, forty,
or one hundred acres becomes the
source of a princely income. The
lands upon which these fortunes
are made are valued by their
owners at an average price of about
fifty dollars per acre.
These are the results upon com
munities who were prepared to
avail themselves of the advantages
of protective tariff. Now turn to
an agricultural country such as the
southern and central portion of Ala
bama, and see the condition of
things there. The farmers there
devote most of their energies to the
growth of cotton, because it bears
the cost of transportation better than
else they can raise, and if
the season should happen to be I'M
propitious and the cotton crop fail,
the whole people are reduced to
state of distress and poverty. A
partial failure of the crop in Ala
bama last year has been disastrous.
Many farmers are not able to buy
seed to plant their lands. The
price of lands in Alabama averages
about four dollars per acre. This
of things would not exist
f Alabama, like Pennsylvania, had
4 factory of some kind in every