Belmont chronicle. [volume] (St. Clairsville, Ohio) 1855-1973, 1883-01-11
in 50 doing he killed everybody in Val

|
i 1t has often struck me that this was
sound advice-not only for medical men
but for men in numeous other callings
of life. 1t seems to Inc that next to the
i human system there is no such field for
what Dr. DunglinSon called intelligent
empiricism rs the mother earth. out of
which the human system was created
and to which it must return; and hence
thai the farmer may we'll be an intelli-
gent experimenter.
WHY AGRICULTURAL PROGRESS HAS
BEEN so SLOW.
This point brings me properly enough
to my Subject-the progress and ad-
vantageS OF the American farmer.
THE PAST HINDRANCEs OF AGRICUL-
TURE.
Agriculture is the oldest employment
kno Hn to man. 1t is likewise the one
in which, all things considered, the least
relative progress has been made. The
student of history cannot fail to be i'm
pressed with the ignuble position occu
pied by the actual tillers of the soil
among all nations in the early ages Of
the world. 1t has also been one of the
most unremuneratiye employments. The
real progress in agriculture has been
made in the last 200 years, and particu-
larly in the last 100 years, and in the
last generation to more marked degree
than in any and almost all preceding
periods. The explanation is not far TO
seek. Ownership did not go with the
tllage of the land. This was the prime
iii ditfic1lty. The next difficulty was the
meagreness and Scartiness of all means
for the transportation and distribution
of the products of the soil. There were
no roads worthy Of the name, and land
carriage of soil products was simply i'm
possible. There were also no markets
worthy of the name. The various pro-
ducts of agriculture, as they are known
and used to-day, were practically unused
by the masses up to the Eighteenth CEN
tury. And even among the well-tO-do
such products as there were had lin
tied and precarious consumption. Man
lived on the earth but not out of it as
he now does. Meats were the staple ar
ticles of f0od--meats washed down by
great quantities of stimulant. The boar's
head meat and wassail bowls OF the
Saxon and Norman barons Of other days
are being sung about and talked about
all over England during these present
holidays.
Under condition of things like this,
agriculture could not flourish, and those
who followed it could not hold much of
a social status. The profession of arms
ranked first, next that of the clergy,
next that of commerce, and last and
lowest that of cultlvating the soil.
Land had omparatively little actual
value and almost no commercial value.
The wants of the wealthy were easily
supplied by the land Immediately around
them and there was no sale for a sur
plus and consequently no inducement to
accumulate IA surplus. The case was
not unlike that of the Israelites when
fed by the maRna in the wilderness,
where sSey who gathered little had
fenoug n Iiid they WHO gathered much
had nothing over. 1t would not keep,
but became an unpleasant smell in their
nOstrils. So it was with the tillers of the
soil until comparatively recent period
in the history of the world. need not
recite to you the history of the feudal
81 stem, OF of the laws Of entail and pri-
mo seniture, nor tell you how they all
bore conspicuous part in making it
impossible for the people to own land.
All the caste, class and privileged con-
ditiOus of society in Europe have rested
for ages on the monopoly of land in a
few hands. Church and State have
alike rested on it, and they rest largely
on it to-day.
! LAND MONOPOLY IN EUROPE.
1t is the land question that affects
Ireland, and, indeed, the whole agricul-
tural class of Great Britain. 1t is the
effort of caste and privilege to make
hewe ers of wood and drawers of water
out of the masses who till the soil of
England, Ireland; Scotland and Wales
that keeps up perpetual discomfort and
semi-revolution among the masses who
| live under British rule. This also is the
parent of Socialism in Germany, and that
it was that planted the germs of Com
munism in France. 1t is also largely
the cause of Nihilism in Russia. Indeed,
it is the embodiment of all the ills that
atfiict society throughout Europe. 1t is
the privilege of the few to own all the
lands. The royalty and nobility, and
gentry own all the land of England
and Scotland and Wales, and absentee
gentry and nobility pretty much all of
Ireland. They expect to live off their
rent rolls, and after them an army of
middle men expect to wax fat by col
lecting these rentals, and political
clergy come in for their tithes. They
levy AS high as seven pounds rental per
acre, equivalent to $50 of our money,
and leave to the actual tiller of the soil
only the thinnest parings of the pota-
toes and the very bluest skim of the
milk.
This is not the time to go exhaustive
! ly into this subject, but in considering
the situation and prospects of the Amer
lean farmer we must take into view the
causes which are so powerfully affecting
it in Europe.
IMMENSE HOLDINGS OF LAND.
This country boasts over four mil
| lion of mers-farm-owners. Let US
contrast our situation with that of Great
! Britain. According to statistics which
have lately come into my hands, two
thirds of Ireland are in possession Of
1891 persons. (There are, l presume,
twice that many land owners IN Belmont
county alone.) Nine-tenths of Scotland
is owned by less than LOO persons. The
| Financial Reform Association of Liver
pool estimate from careful figures that
2,1SO persons own no less than 3S,S75,512
acres, or 2,S15,542 acres more than one
half of the reported area of the United
Kingdom. AS a specimen of seme of
these estates | may mention that the
Duke of Sutherland owns l, ,2OS.546 acres !;
Slr James Matheson 424,560 acres; the
Duke of Devonshire 193,321 acres; the
Marquis of Butte 1l6,66S; the Duke of
Buccleugh 1915 acres; the Duke of
Athol 94,64S; the Duke of Argyle 175,-
III acres. And so on through long
list. Not only do they own it, and not
only do they prevent any subdivision
of it among the people, but worse than
this, if possible, they deprive thousands
of people from the privilege of cultivat
ing it as tenants and renters. A writer