The Vermont watchman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1883-1911, 1888-04-04

does not make this statement on his
own responsibility, but bases it on the
"opinion of the people," We suppose
he ought to know, yet do not think he
has canvassed this state very thoroughly.
Forty years carry us back a good ways
in the history of our state, in
considerable portion of which the coun-
try was quite new. Take this northern
part, for instance, and compare prices
of farm products then and now. Cheese,
pork and butter, to some extent, were
marketed in Montreal and had to be
carried by teams. Shipments could
also be made by water to New York by
way of st. Adams Bay. Often farm
products were carried by team to Bos-
ton. Butter brought ten to twelve
cents per pound, cheese five to six and
pork about the same. Eggs sold for
six cents a dozen and dressed chickens
for about the same per pound. Not
much maple sugar was made to sell.
Hay brought IS to So per ton and lum-
Der perhaps IS per thousand feet when
there was any sale. Wood and hem
lock bark were worth about 81 per cord.
Sheep and cattle were much lower than
now and had to be driven to market.
Most of the supplies then used in the
family were much higher than now.
We well remember the first tub of but
ter shipped from the ancestral farm to
a commission house in Boston. The
net returns were seventeen cents
pound, and we were much pleased with
the marked advance over former prices.
Let us compare some of the present
prices of farm products with those
quoted-prices that many now consider
low-and note the difference: Butter,
twenty cents per pound; cheese, ten
cents: eggs, fifteen cents per dozen;
poultry, fifteen cents per pound; hay,
$40 per ton; hemlock lumber, $40 per
thousand; bark, So per cord. a large
quantity of maple sugar is now sold at
fair prices.
Living two hundred fifty miles from
market we can not, of course, expect to
get as good prices as those living near by,
but let us see what it costs to market
our own butter in Boston, shipped in
refrigerator cars during warm weather.
The average cost for the season will
be say two cents a pound Git should
not be more) from st. Adams or
Richford. Five-eighths of this goes
to the commission men, and three
eighths or three-fourths of one cent
a pound pays for the carriage by
railroad, and this must of course in
clude the excessive freight-rates "
mentioned. With all of the competi-
ton of the West and the alleged freight
exactions of our Vermont railroads, we
will find that our farmers realize tUice
as much for their butter, cheese, hay,
mutton and lumber as they did forty
years ago, and nearly or quite three
times as much for eggs, poultry, wood,
building timber and bark. There is not
at present much difference in the prices
of pork.
1t does not seem, in the face of these
things, that there are many farmers in
the state who would like to have the
railroads swept out of existence and go
back to the methods and prices of forty
years ago. We have better idea Of
the sound sense of the people than to
suppose or admit of any such thing, or
that, lin the opinion of the people,"
Vermont is not as good place to live
in as it was forty years ago. The state
is what we will make it, and we believe
it is the duty of all fair-minded men to
do all they can to turn the tide of 6 popu-
lar uneasiness into home chan
nel,' and to build up our own indus
tries and interests by all wise and
laudable methods.-Agricultural Ed
tor st. Adams Messenger.