The midland journal. (Rising Sun, Md.) 1885-1947, 1889-11-15
THE Farm.
Farmers, Gardners, Hoyticuiturists,
airy and 9tockmen are requested to
Write for this Department.
Agriculture and Transportation.

Agriculture dnu LEduSpOI IhIlOu'
The development of the railroad sys-
tenn deprived Eastern farmers Of the
advantage due to nearness to market.
With greater facilities of transporta-
ton, farms were placed where the land
was more fertile and less exhausted.
Grain and other products ware raised
for shipment in bulk, so that this coun.
try produced food for Europe as we'll as
for itself. This gave great advantage
to the West, and the Eastern farms
were deropulated. 1t became not a
question of how to grow crops for con-
sumption near by, but how to transport
them to some market farther off. The
railroad carried thousand bushels OF
produce to the New York or London
markets at price per mile less than
the farmer could carry one bushel of
grain over the wagon road from his
farm. The greater the distance the
grain was transported, the less was the
pro rata compensation received by the
railroads. OF course the result was
disastrous, not only to the Eastern
farmers but to the railroad itself, for,
in the wild and senseless competition
for freight, the crude managers got the
impression that after the trains were
made up the relative distance of trans
portation was Of little account little
additional cost on fuel would be invok
ed, but their enlarged receipts would
look we'll in the statistical tables of the
New York Stock Exchange. When it
was found that the railroad corporation
could no longer pay the interest on the
bonds, much less dividends on the cap
ital stock, and was unable to get money
for making the necessary repairs, it
simply collapsed reorganization took
place-to repeat the folly, but left
nothing to the projectors.
The first effect was to destroy the
farms of the East, but, like the baleful
influence of the upas tree, this system
Of railroading has destroyed the farms
of the West. The Western farmers
now suffer from the same blight which
depopulated and made valueless for
staple crops the farms Of New England :,
and their fields and homesteads have
been covered with mortgages, in the
vain attempt to supply the world with
cereals-unrequited labor. Under this
system, farming has been made not only
improbable for the cereal cultivation.
but there has been a gradual impover-
ishment of the entire agricultural pop
ulation Of the United States, as shown
by the assessors lists, while the other
property near the cities has increased
in value. A recent writer observes:
So far as it now appears, there is not
a single prosperous farming community
within the bread limits of this land.
The recent report of State Commits
sion of Illinois to the effect that more
than three fourths of the valuable lands
of that State are under mortgage, and
that its agricultural population has al
ready declined and must inevitably
decline much more in the immediate
future, shows the results of causes ex-
actly fitted in their own nature to pro-
duce them. 1t is probable, if not GER
tain, that about as large proportion of
the lands of Iowa, and Kansas, and Ne
braska are under mortgage as in Illi-
nois. 1t is no better at the East. The
auctioneer's hammer has been remark
ably busy this present winter in knock
ing off under foreclosure the best farms
In Bucks county, Penn. In New Eng
land it is still worse. Williamstown
itself does not support one half as many
people from its lands as it did forty
years ago. Whole tiers and stretches
of farms in every New England State,
which once maintained a lusty and
thrifty population, are growing up to
forest again. Farming is no more
profitable in the neighborhood of the
vast factories CD the Merrimac river,
which carries more spindles than any
other river in the world. than it is on
the hillsides of Vermont and New
Hampshire.
To add to this dismal picture We are
confronted with the well.attested fact
even at the unremunerative prices we
obtain for our wheat, we have practi-
cally but one foreign customer-Eng-
land-and she makes the export price.
1t is we'll known amid all the fuctua-
tions and advances in the price of
wheat in Chicago during the past few
years-sometimes half dollar bushel
in a season-that the advance has not
been reflected in the foreign markests
The statistical branch Of official work of
the Department Of Agriculture has been
engaged for several years in perfecting
its international exchanges, and utiliz
;rn tha faots IF Droduotion distribution