Southern standard. (McMinnville, Tenn.) 1879-current, 1890-06-07


der farm, the broad praries Of the
West were thrown open for home
steads, and every man upon the face
of the earth who would accept it,
was given farm and he came and
all his "hock." Not yet content, it
granted lands by the "Statefup to
the railway companies, which imme-
diately built railways across the vast
plains, and by cheap rates and much
agency" attracted millions of peo-
pie, not only from the manufacture
ing East, but Europe as well, and
put them to producing beef, wheat
and corn; and actually overwhelmed
the world with surplus products
along these lines. This policy trans
ferred one bread.eating man from
Europe to this country and set him
to producing bread for 500 others in
stead. What we are producing to-
day, by good rights should only have
been reached in 1910, and given the
chance for gradual absorption of a
healthy, increasing agricultural sur
plus.
The result is that too much of this
product is crude; too much sent to
market in an manufactured state.
1t needs digesting at home. There
is only one-fourth that finds its way
to the market as good as the con-
sumner demands. The market asks
25-cent butter, and of the four pounds
sent, three of them are only in the 10
and 10 cent class. The market asks
for fine cheese, and two of every
three cheeses that find their way to
the market have been so close to the
skinner that the blue of the tin is yet
observable upon them. The market
asks for steers worth 50 per 100 lbs,
and gets only one of that class, and
six along with it that sell all the way
from $l.50 to 81 per 100, the seller
refusing to feed the Decent corn to
these six steers, and so sends the
corn into a market that already stag
gers under its load of corn. The
market asks for fine mutton and
winter lambs, but we stand around
and await the tariff tinkers' work,
expecting that the law has power to
feed a sheep and direct the system of
winter lamb.raising-an expectation
as fruitless as to await the enactment
of a law that shall make thin COW
beef sell in the same notch as export
steers.
While the railways have many
sins to answer for-eXcessive charges
on local rates and fares, discrimina.
tons in various ways, all telling to
some extent, yet being adjusted
more and more each year-the great
crying evil to-day that is operating
against our farmers most, is the adul
teration Of not only our foods but {
thousand and one things that indi
rectly have to do with the farm
Every pound of lard that is adultera
ted with some foreign substance, JUS
to that extent lessons actual larC
consumption. While we do not de-
fend poor butter, yet every pound o
Oleo and butterine sold for butter
lessons the pure butter consumed, by
that much. Every pound Of filled
cheese more than spoils the sale 0
the pound Of good ; and every gallon
of glucose sold for maple syrup ha
! its bad depressing effect upon tn
sugar camp. All this has its effec
upon what the farmer sells, and a
! he finds his coffee adulterated, tn
pepper and spices stuffed, the drug
: diluted and the cloth shoddied, it al
tells OF a third of the money paid 70
: nothing, or something that repre-
= sents very little value, and of doubt
full influence upon health, if chemists
;, reports are to be believed.
But if we broadened our industrie
;. NOT that all should go at forty dill
4 ferent things, but each should choos
o what seemed to be best, and raise il
this country a thousand things W
f now import-we should have les
depression. We could raise NOR
i small fruits and buy less from abroad
,. We could raise few other things O
" the farm that we now think we mus
6 buy, and if the money paid by tn
+ farmer and his bOys-some of ther
!. did not-for beer, tobacco and ofte
r something stronger, had been save
, and applied to something that all tn
:. family could have been benefited BY
Up little depression SO far as money
4 concerned would lift large load i