The Monitor., 1890-08-08
WHY FARMING DOESN'T PAL

u
The seventeenth annual report of the
State Board of Agriculture, just ssued,
contains an excellent article from the pen
OF President Edward Burrough on the sub
jec tof farming interests in New Jersey.
He says:
"a farmer in New Jersey to be prosper
Gus must give close attention to the details
of his business. He must be ever on the
alert of new systems and new produtcs.
He should go slow until satisfied hat he is
in the right track and then push vigorously
forward. He mus be continually educat
ing himself on new ideas and methods. He
should be illing to attend his County
Board institute and take part in the pro-
ceedings. He should be perfectly free SO
give his experiences and successes and
failures.
The County Boards are institutes and
should be used and improved. Institutes
have been inangurated by the County
Boards in several counties with satisfac-
tory results.
Perhaps the most damaging result to tie
farmers ofNew Jersey and the Eastern
States is that resulting from the dressed
beef industry of Chicago and Kansas City.
This giant monopoly is like an octopus,
whose strong arms have reached every city,
village and hamlet in the country, and
crushed in its enormous clasp the fatten
ing of animals in every section of the
State. If a dairyman has an animal that
is Improbable for the dairy he cannot af-
ford to fatten 1t, because he has 10 market
for it; the consequence Is, he sells his dry
COWS to bologna butcher, for mere
fiesby parts upon stalls, and they become
the food of the poorer classes. and most
frequently at prices that would entitle
them to meat ofa FAR better quality. The
of dairy animals also drive out the fatted
steer; and steep and hog feeding are alike
strangled by the arms of the octopus,
dressed beef. The remedy for this lies in
legislation, either by Congress or by the
States, or both, and the sooner our law
makers awake to this fact the better.
The diary interest is to-day the largest
interest, agrieulturally speaking, in the
State, and yet the receipts for milk sold by
the wholesale producer do not make milk
dairying profitable business. This is
partially, if not wholly, owing to the pro-
ducers themselves not having business
and systematic mode of marketing the
same. The farmer finds the land, purchases
the cows, produces or buys the feed, does
the care taking and the milking, owns the
car S, carts the milk to the depot and pre-
pays the freight, and for all of this he re-
ceives scarcely half the price paid by tbs
consumer. One-half of this solid price is
retained by the retailer, who also buys the
milk by dry measure and sells it by liquid
measure. This system or lack of system
will continue so long as the milk producers
quietly submit to be fieeced of over fifty pc
cent. of the price their milk sells for in the
markets of the country. Clearly the rem
edy lies with the producers. They should
unite and foIm milk supply unions similar
to those successfully operated in New
York State.
''The subject of taxation is one that
should engage serious attention. Houses
and farms pay too large proportion OF the
taxes. There is much injustice in taxing
resi- estate, between city and town lots and
farm land held for speculative purposes
and agricultural lands. To-day the great
er part of the agricultural lands are assess
ed at as much per acre as they will bring
at public sale, and the valuations cannot
be lessened because of the mortgage in-
debtness; and the personal taxes of
farms are always collected. On the other
band, the valuations in the city are too low,
and consequently high rate OF assessment
is resorted to to meet the requirements of
the municipal government"