The Anderson intelligencer. [volume] (Anderson Court House, S.C.) 1860-1914, 1890-03-27
Why Farmers are Poor.

WASHINGTON, March 2l.-American
agriculture is treated by Statistician ]. R.
Dodge in the March report of the Depart.
ment of fAgriculture. The prevalence of
low prices is noted, and feeling of dis
couragement in rural districts throughout
the world is indicated.
It is and has been especially severe in
Great Britain, and is the subject of COM
plant, discussion and official investiga-
tion in Germany, France, Italy and other
countries. II is present in monarchies
and republic, under diverse currencies
and economic systems. Though the
prices ofimplements, utensils and fabrics
are also lower, the farmers interest
account is unreduced and his mortgage
harder to lift. The main cause of low
prices is referred to the inexorable law
of supply and demand. Corn and wheat
and other stanles are cheap because of
overproduction. immigration has iu-
creased the population 100000 in ten
years.
nter.continental areas have been
carved into farms free to natives and for
eigners, opening millions of acres to
cultivation. Railroad extension has kept
pace with production, and overwhelmed
the East with Western products. Spec.
ulation first and utilization atterward
have produced results that have aston
ished the world with q plethora of bread
and meat, The old world has joined with
the new to crowd the mountains, valleys,
slopes and far stretching plains of the
continent with beeves in the haunts of
once countless herds of buffalo. In the
more eastern areas the maturity of beeves
has been hastened by breeding
and feeding. An extended comparison
shows how, in the progress of forty years,
production has outrun population in its
widest strides. 1t is shown that wheat
growing has become a philanthropic
mission to make cheap bread consistent
with low wages in Great Britain, that
the Northwestern missionaries continue
sowing their seeds and floating their
bread across waters, mourning for profits
that do not return after many days. 1t
is suggested that less than fourth of the
world eat wheat, that half of the people
of Europe scarcely know its taste, and
that Asia, Africa, South American and
Australia all have wheat TO sell.
Dodge says that while there is on ex-
cess of production of few staples, there
are insufficient supplies of many other
necessary products and total absence of
scores of others which should furnish
profitable employment to rural labor.
There is Too narrow range of cropping.
Diversi6cation is essential to agricultural
salvation. There are imports costing
$24O, 100000 per annum of agricultural
products which should be produced here.
These are sugar, fbres, fruits and nuts,
barley, leaf tobacco and wines. Farmers
are suffering for want of hundreds of
millions of dollars that the sweat of their
brows and the dexterity of their hands
might produce in "raw materials" for
scores of old and new Industries. It is
stated that the cotton crop, valuable as
it is, would not suffice to furnish board
for the people of the cotton States at first
class hotels for q week, and thatscores OF
other products not now growing should
enrich agriculture and relieve the exist
ing depression. 1t is argued that there
should be no more need of going 10 Italy
or Japan for raw silk than to India for
raw cotton and as little need of going to
Cuba for sugar.
The statistician treats of what he chsr-
acterizes the folly of the wheat growers
insisting on going to the antipodes for
binder twine, while million acres Of
fax fiber is wanted in adjoining fields
and when they could grow hemp enough
in six months to bind the wheat of the
world. This is, he says, exceeded only
by the cotton growers who are wild to go
to India for jute, when it will grow in our
cotton fields as readily as weeds. De
preston more in tense will result, it is
predicted, if the farmers continue to re.
STRICT their efforts, walk in the furrows
their fathers turned and seek to live and
die in the same overdone and proftless
routine. Another serious cause Of
depression, he says, is the exorbitant
share of the farmers products taken by
the middlemen and carriers. The grow.
crs receive 25 to 80 per cent. less for
beeves than. the consumers pay for beef.
Iu1lh 10 UuuSuu IUi q Couto qudaV ou0
sold for 8 cents. The huckster often
makes more for handling the product in
day than the grower received for pro.
ducing a seasons growth. The sellers
profit on fresh fruit is suggestion Of
greed and eXtortion.
The army of dealers in futures disturb
the material flow of trade, check expor-
tation by a temporary rise, TO be followed
by lower prices and greater fluctuations.
The spectators depress prices wher the
granaries are full, and boom them when
the farmers have nothing to sell. The
community iB infested with pestilent
swarms of non.producers. The curse of
speculation blights and consumes the re.
suit of honest industry. Leeches fasten
on every product of labor and suck from
it the life. blood profit. Men who produce
nothing, who neither toll on the farns
nor spin in the factories, are absorbing
the wealth ofthe country by combinations
without conscience and service without