Martinsburg herald. [volume] (Martinsburg, W. Va.) 1881-1920, 1890-02-08
The AGRICULTURAL OUTLOOK.
READ BEFORE THE FARMERS GETTYSBURG, Pa
JAN 10, 1890 BY W. H. BLACK, or FLORA DALE, PA.

aborers have work and farmbudings in repair and
IL, able lands be under cultivation But the long
continued depression of the grain and stock markets. nd
Gates period hard times with farmers and the tax
tor confirms it.
An intelligent gentleman of this county recently told me
that il takes nearly his half of the products of the farm
fine fertile tract-to pay and keep repairs and
fertility Few farms. am told paying interest
Perhaps the best that be said offarmng at
that it assures employment There be awell
grounded belief that aborer who has Aeary constant e1
ployment doing about we'll who rents farm
Or is trying to pay for farm. .t
While there has been falling off in land values along
line the Eastern States to suffer most Large es
tates New England which valuable are report
going back bushes bars and forrest trees as
will not for enough TO pay and repairs
With u.s. farmers complain that there is little profit IN
raising 80 and that there actual loss IN
raising wheat at present prices
Eastern farmers charge the prices of farm products
which Western goods shipped to East
markets neghbor of mine recently had ten bushels
potatoes shipped from point sixty miles beyond Chicago
Bendesvle The freight was 70 CENTS or IL cents per
hundred weight The freight from Bendersyie to Baltimore
the 10 cents hundred weight while the DIT
the about equal to the distance from
Chicago Harrisburg In Iowa. trunk lines at points
hundred miles of Chicago selling at III cts
per bushe and in Kansas and Nebraska worth from IL
bushe and the western farmer charges the
there the high railroad tariffs and the middlemen
penses THIS that the of the general hard
times vary with the point of observation it not
possible that agricultural depression is caused in part by
changed conditions the farm Thirtyve the
woods about country meeting houses filed Sab
baths with saddle horses Now the farm help think
they least have the Of ahorse and buggy
Twenty years ago went 10 the prares and Ascension
Day party in dozen wagons heading for the Illinois
River said friend That is the quietest fishing party
saw. He simply said. 1T is funeral" People all
the country to church in lumber Corn
go bushel and people paying for farms in
deprecated currency and growing rich Twelve
later revisited the region and the same people
going church fine carriages drawn by Bashaw rottes
and all else indoor and had changed in the ratio
But the people complaining of hard times and
ganzng oranges fight the railroads and the
middlemen
The uxures of generation become the necessities of
the and the young think they must begin with the
forts and that surround their elders after life
of care and toll. Ha
OF course the chief cause agricultural depression is
that for years farm products have been in of the de-
mand. Let briefly examine the that have led to
this production order ascertain they pera
nent in their character Improved machinery increased
the acreage under cultivation and has yet decrease
number of people needed FARMS Tile draining has
dered men of otherwise worthless the surely
productive the world The railroads. the building
which has been greatly reduced by the manufacture
Besemer STEEL and promises be still further reduced by
the openhearh STEEL by pushing beyond
the frontier into regions known only rapper and
pectors have opened vast cultivation The
commercial fertilizers has, perhaps doubled the production
of cereals in winter wheat lands Similar agencies have
been work in other countries. The draining of vast
marshes and the introduction of American harvesting
chnery have greatly increased the production of Russian
wheat and the opening of waterways has given India
the grain markets of Europe The development
the Argentine Republic has been phenomenal Ten years
the pampa were covered by herds of hafwd cattle raised
by hafsavage herdsmen for the hides and talow
Now they trayersed by railroads. and with
pleasant homes cereal producing Argentine
Republic stands at the head of South American nations and
is formidable rival in the markets of Southern Europe
There is nothing paradoxica in saying that agricultural
progress has caused agricultural depression innovation
seems to be at its food The Irvine binder gave US
new industry and another trust but promised
that machine will be put the market opening of
the Southern harvest that will send both the junk shop
work constructing engine that will pillow
and pulverize billy fields harvess and do the
heavy hauling thus dispensing with the heavy draught
horse and his feed BILL and alas throwing his heavy ration
on already overloaded forage market.
What can be done to diminish over-procucon p
Can we limit production? Can enlarge our market?
About 10 per cent of total food products exported
This with the accumulation in and elevator about
given Sabbath of year seven as in the oIden
time we would have no troublesome surplus.
The modern way of limiting production and advancing
prices is by means of :" trusts y
Why should not farmers by means of some organized
production.
value, thus advance prices to point Of profit
Because the farmers honest and believe that spec
ulative trusts are organizations of thieves.
Because there is feeling among people not living on
farms that there is real ownership in lands and the
farmers in but its stewards True the law
has practically beeh that the andess have abiding rights
The landless man must move he muskeep mbeihg on
he not BY the wayside In thecity rule
vigorously enforced Even the parks vacated at
But the communist has color for his che COM
tdc To whom do the wild fruits the berries
your farm belong? Hence the cry for single tax
tax land without the improvements, cry that lately
started people out of their of security revealing the
volcanic elements at work beneath social structure
Were farmers organize raise the price of bread the
communists and anarchists would out Whence have
men title deed to the land Who the 2? And
good would answer The earth is the Lord and the
fu,aess thereof" p
Since not likely limit production let as look at
the other horn of the dilemma
The American people the best paid the best clothed
the best sheltered and the best fed people world The
American Market therefore the best market in the world
the cent surplus that gives much trouble The
1880 shows that about SO of the
people then living farms point of utmost in.
in the of $780,
producers will bear non-producers From personal
knowledge of several States that has been
great change in the ratio States of the Missouri CITY
has many points been falling off in rural populations
As discussing this subject from financial and not
from moral stand point regard this change for the
better lower per cent OF producers and proportional
increase producers, will show that the home market
for material of any kind is improving.
We have lived long under the American system that
scarcely realize how much indebted to for what
of prosperity have enjoyed Let us cite
point When went to the prairies twenty
pioymen in Iowa and Illinois alone many thousand men,
In tariff tnkerng about 1870, the duty lutte butts
dropped In year the fax industry dead. Every
mill had stopped Thousands of dollars worth of machinery
to rust DUST the little army of nrnen Joined
the of opened farms and raised
wheat and and helped to bring down the price your