The Indiana State sentinel. [volume] (Indianapolis) 1868-1895, 1889-06-26
FARM AND HOME COLUMN.
DECLINE OF AGRICULTURAL PROFITS.
Farming should be the Most Prosperous of
All Industries-Two Valuable Timber
Tress-Cabbage and oauiinower-
Farm AND Garden Notes.

The statement of Assessor Wood that
he finds farming land declining in value
so serious in New York that within few
years, if things 90 on as they are now
going, we shall have only tenant farmers
in this state, the mortgages being obliged
to take the land upon which they have
loaned money, ought to lead the farmers
to some study of the tariff. There is
nothing, says the New York Erening Post,
stranger than the delusion that is so prev
alent among them that protection Is favor
able TO their interests About three
fourths of our total exports consist OF agri-
cultural products. These are sold partly
in foreign markets in competition with
the cheapest articles of like kinds pro-
duced in the world. The prices they
bring, consequently, are the lowest prices
that such articles can be sold for, produced
in countries where lands are cheapest,
where taxation is lowest, or where labor
is most abundant and wages at the starva-
ton point, as for example in India. The
price of our agricultural products in for
eign markets regulates and fixes the
prices of all those sold at home. because
no merchant could afford to sell our pro-
ducts abroad at less than the prevailing
market price in this country. Notwith-
standing this Is so unquestionably and
obviously true, the strange fact is also true
that a majority of the farmers in the
northern states have been voting for al
most q generation in favor of enormous
rates of tariff duties, with the effect of
increasing the cost to them very largely
of nearly every kind OF manufactured
goods they purchase.
Such a mode of conducting business
must necessarily result injuriously 10 the
farmers. They comprise nearly one-half
OF our laboring population. The main
tenance of civilized conditions of life
among them requires that they exchange
the products of their labor for the prod
ucts of the labor of other people. That
they should do this on fair terms would
be only Just. That they should do il on
favorable terms, if they can, would seem
to require no argument. If conditions can
be established by which they can obtain,
in exchange for their corn and wheat, cot
ton and tobacco, beef and pork, dairy and
other farm products, the largest quantities
of the necessaries of life, such as imple
ments and machinery, hardware and lum-
Der, cottons and woollens, glassware,
chinaware, salt, coal, etc, it ought to be
obvious to every farmer that his circum-
stances will be better, that he viii be better
rewarded for his labor, and that he and
his family will enjoy in greater abundance
the comforts of life, than if he is COM
PEELED to make his exchanges in
restricted market where the price of all
he purchases is greatly enhanced, and
the price of what he sells is not enhanced
at all For instance, If the farmers
of the United States export 100000, 600
&
for it in the Liverpool market 00.000 900
yards of cloth, on which, on its arrival in
this country, duty of 100000 must be
paid. is it not obvious that they get less
cloth for a bushel of wheat than il there
were no duty, or the duty were only half
as high But is it not Just as obvious that
| if there is protective duty on cloth. and
| ii the wheat is exchanged for similar cloth
made in this country, the result must to
| the farmer be the same? III il is not the
| same, then the protective duty is useless
| The price of the home made article may
not be as high as the tariff would permit,
although there is always an endeavor to
make it so by combinations and trusts !;
| but if it were not higher than free mar
ket and fair play would justify, the pro-
| tective tariff would not be desired or
asked for by anybody.
Many farmers believe that although they
| do sell III free market and buy in a re-
stricted one, and although this is present
| disadvantage 10 them, yet that all this
| Is for the general advantage, and that they
! will share in the resulting prosperity by
and by. We deny that it is for the gem
eral advantage, and especially do we eau
tion them to beware of any method of
| dividing the proceeds of the national in
| dustry where they can see exactly how
they lose, but can not see exactly how
| they lain. The first protective
tariff of any real moment was
| enacted in 1916. 1t is now up
ward of three score years and ten that
! the farmers have been waiting for their
share OF the winnings. III they have not
| yet realized it, when may they ever ex-
| pect to? A patriotic willingness to make
| sacrifices for the general prosperity is
laudable; but may not the American
| farmers say that it is now time for other
people to take their turn, and make the
sacrifices, if any are TO be made? We
hold that no sacrifices are needed that
the only thing needed is to let each man
and each class of producers have and en-
! Joy what they honestly earn; but if fur
ther sacrifices were necessary, those who
have been making them continuously for
more IMAM the lSdlullSJ peTlOu OF lie
are now entitled to a respite.
Farming ought to be the most prosper
GUS of ali our industries, because the in
herent properties of the soil are free
| gift of nature. Other things can be dis.
pensed with more or less the products of
| agriculture can not. Does the American
farmer reap this natural advantage? Is
farming in this country prosperous
Each farmer must answer this question
for himself; but we point TO the fact that
between 1850 and 1860, under low tariff,
farming wealth increased 100 per cent.
while under the high tariff, between 1870
and 1880, it increased only 9 per cent
How is this remarkable difference to be
explained? Not by any shortage in the
amount of new and fertile land accessible
not by any increase in the cost of trans
portation-on the contrary, this has been
enormously lessened; not by any want oil
market-the market for agricultural prod
ucts is only limited by the population OF
the world. Can any other cause be imag-
ined than the arbitrary and unjust re-
quirement that the farmer shall sell in a
free market and buy in restricted one
| Two Timber Trees.
The London Garden speaks of two trees
which have proved valuable for their tim.
Der, and which we think may at the same
time be largely planted on the broad
Al 4