The Monitor., 1890-04-04
AGRICULTURAL DEPRESSION.

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The prevailing depression in American
agriculture is treated by the statistician,
j. R. Dodge, in the March report Of the
Department of Agriculture. The main
cause of low prices is referred to the mex
orable law of supply and demand Corn
and wheat and other staples are cheap be-
cause of overproduction. Immigration
has increased the population 5000, 900 in
ten years. Intercontinental areas have
been carved into farms, free to natives and
| foreigners, opening millions of acres to
| cultivation. Railroad extension has stimn-
lated production and overwhelmed the
East with Western products. Speculation
first and utilization afterward have pro-
world with plethora Of bread and meat
Extended comparisons show how, in the
progress Of forty years, production has
outrun population in its widest strides.
&r. Dodge says while there is excess of
production of a few staples there are in
sufficient supplies of many other necessary
products and total absence OF scores .of
others which should furnish profitable en-
| ployment to rural labor There is too mar
row range Of cropping. Diversifcation
Is essential to agricultural saliva ton. There
are imported a240, 900, 900 per annum of
! agricultural products which should be
produced here. These are sugar, animals
and their products, ibres, fruits and nuts,
barley, leaf tobacco. and wines. Farmers
are suffering for want of hundreds of mil
lions Of dollars that the sweat of the brows
and dexterity of hands might produce in
''raw materials" for scores of old and new
industries.
He argues that there should be no more
need of going to Italy or Japan for raw
silk than to India for raw cotton; and as
little need of going to Cuba for sugar. He
speaks of the folly of wheat growers insist
ing on going to the antipodes for binder
twine, while million of acres of fax fibre
is wasted in adjoining fields, and when
they could grow hemp enough in six
months to bind the wheat of the world.
This, he says, is exceeded only by the twin
folly OF the cotton growers, who are wild
to go to India for jute, when it will grow
in their cotton fields as readily as weeds.
Depression more intense viii result, it is
predicted, if farmers continue to restrict
their efforts. walk in the burrows their
fathers turned, and seek to live and die in
the same overdone and pro6tless routine
Another serious cause of depression, he
says, is the exorbitant share of the farmers
products taken by the middlemen and car
riers. While growers receive 25 to 80 per
cent. less for beeves consumers pay the
same fer beef. Milk is bought for three
cents per quart and sold for eight. The
huckster often takes more for handling a
product in day than the grower received
for producing a seasons growth. The sell
of greed and extertion. The army of deal
ers in futures disturb the natural flow of
trade, check expectation by temporary
rise, to be followed by lower prices and
greater fluctuations. Spectators depress
prices when gamers are full, and boom
them when farmers have nothing to sell,
as at present. The community is infested
with pestilent swarms of non-producers.
The curse Of speculation blights and con-
sunles the result of honest industry. Leech-
es fasten on every product of labor, and
suck from it the life-b blood of profit. Men
who produce nothing, who neither toll on
the farm nor spin in the factories, are
absorbing the wealth Of the country by
combination without conscience and ser
vice without equity.
1t is suggested that farmers may be conn.,
PEELED to retail their own fruits and veget-
ables, sell their own meats, and manufae-
ture their own flour.
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