Barton County democrat. [volume] (Great Bend, Kan.) 1885-1915, 1889-08-22
SOME REASONS


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In Frank Leslie's Illustrated Weekly, of
August 10th, we find the following
article on the above subject. The
writer, James A. Briggs, handles his
subject in plain, business manner 1t
will be found of interest, to our own
people, and to their relatives and friends
of the east who are wearing their lives
away trying to make scant living on
a few acres of overworked eastern farm
land. Read it.
ssThe state assessors" says news
paper, fare making their annual
visitation to the several counties
selected for this years Inspection y
They say: 1--WE find general depre-
citation in the value of farm-lands. City
property is increasing in value" There
is no doubt of the entire truth of these
statements. It must be obvious to the
mind of every intelligent and candid
man who has been an observer of
matters and things for period of
years.
There are several good and sufficient
reasons why farm-lands in the east
have deprecated in value. One of
them is because the agricultural popu-
lation of New York and the east has
not increased in proportion to the
population of the country. In 1880 the
population of the state was 1918 sos.
Of this number, twelve per cent. was
in New York and Kings counties. In
1889 the population of the state is
estimated the estimate is probably
correct at 6,OOO,OO and of this popu-
lation New York and Kings counties
have at least 100000, or forty per
cent. of the population of the state. In
very many of the agricultural counties
of this state, and in the purely farming
districts, there has not been any
material increase of the agricultural
population since the census of the
United States in 1880.
In 1880 the state of New York was
the third in wheat production in the
Union, and for years Rochester was
the great flour depot of the country. In
1888 the state of New York had fallen
to the fifteenth state in wheat pro-
duction, and decreased from twenty to
forty bushels an acre to less than
thirteen. Where there were 500 900.
inhabitants west of us in 1880, there
are now nearly 10000, 900, and a great
majority of them in agricultural pur-
suits. Dakota, that was few years
ago stranger to the farmer and his
industries, last year produced over
SO ,0OO, 900 bushels of wheat.
1t is impossible for the farmers of
the state of New York, with their
exhausted soil, their poor crops, and
high rates of wages, to compete with
the0farmers of the states of the west.
There is surplus soil enough in some
of the rich prairie towns of the west,
if spread over the county of Monroe or
Oneida, to make those counties richer
in soil than they were when the first
wooden pillow turned up a furrow in
them. In one of our counties in New
York a man and a boy and pair of
horses will find plenty to do to cultivate,
during the season, five acres of corn.
Mr.. John H. Bryant, a brother of the
late William Cullen Bryant, told me
that in Bureau county, Illinois, man
and boy and two pair of horses could
cultivate 100 acres Of corn. A gentle
man told me that when he was ON a
visit to Lebanon, Warren county, Ohio,
he saw loads of barnyard manure
dropped into Turtle creek. When he
asked why it was not spread on the
land, he was told tue land was so rich
it would not stand fertilizing. The
farmers in the state OF New York CAN
not successfully come in competition
with the farmers who cultivate such
western lands.
In Massachusetts / have travelled
through the country and seen deserted
houses and tumble-down barns and
stone fences in the woods, where years
ago there were cultivated fields.
Directly west and northwest of the
state of New York there were, in 1880,
about O,OOO,O 900 acres of land under
cultivation in farms, and in this state
less than 100000 of acres. Many of
these millions of acres at the west are
as productive as any land that the sun
shines on, while all the farmland in
this state requires fertilizers. In 1880
more money was paid for fertilizers in
the state of New York than for all
that was put on the $50, 600, 900 of acres
west of us.
I have said that New York had fallen
from the third to the fifteenth state in
wheat production. Ohio, Michigan,
Indiana, Illinois, Wisconsin, Missouri,
Kansas, and Nebraska far excel us in
corn crops. In Illinois the corn crop
is nearly ten times as great as in New
York. In the potato production New