The times. (Owosso, Mich.) 1882-1897, 1890-05-23

TASTE Their advice points in the direc-
ton Of aimless poverty and practical
serfdom.
The agricultural exports Of the United
States during the past year amounted to
about $3.50, 100000 at the sea ports, or
about $500, 000, 900 on the farms. The
agricultural imports amounted to over
S34S, 000, 900 at ports of shipment, and
fully $500, 900 900 with freiglfts and COM
missions added, without further allow
ance for under valuation. Thus it takes
most of our agricultural exports to pay
for agricultural imports. These imports
are largely food and fibers. The heavier
items for 188S-89 were as follows:
Sugar and molasses. ................ sos 297, 8eS
Animals and their products, except
wool ......................... 4O4l9,5o2
Fibers, animal and vegetable ........ 90, 453 1886
Fruits and nuts. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS. 1S746,417
Barley and other cereals. .............. 8971.722
Tobacco, leaf Observation-Disclosures. 10S68,226
Wines. .......................... 7.7O6,772
Total. $50 464, 443
Most Of this importation should be pro-
duced here and many minor products not
named; in fact, there is little on the list,
except tea and coffee, that should be i'm
ported. There are many plants yielding
fruits, dyes, medicines and other prod
ucts useful in the arts or for food that
could be profitably grown, after suitable
experiment, for the supply of demand
already existing or to be created, and
utilizing rural labor and increasing the
wealth of the country.
The main difficulty Is there is overpro-
duction of few staples and quite too
limited list of rural products.
Nine-tenths at least Of all the raw ma
terials required for textile, metallic, me-
chanical, chemical, oleaginous or other
manufacture can be produced primarily
by our farmers diverting their labor to
profitable channels, and swelling the
value of their products, steadying the
prices of the food staples and insuring
prosperity and comfort to all. No other
panacea will cure hard times; a profit
able outlet, by Investigation and extern
sion, for constantly augmenting rural
labor, can alone make rural industry
profitable. If the policy of going abroad
for all fibers except cotton shall be put
into permanent practice, and for all
sugar and fruits, barley and oil seeds, to
be paid for in corn and wheat and cot
ton, which are already crowded into
foreign markets to the last pound and
bushel, there will be no necessity for a
"single tax" to make the farmers land
valueless, and no need of account books
or pocket books and little demand for
books of any kind.
And yet there is gross ignorance
abroad of the extent of these limitations
of our agriculture and of the means of re-
cuperation. Many of our farmers are
delaying the emancipation of rural in
dustry and seeking to import cordage to
bind upon their backs still closer their
present burdens. Instead of enlarging
the range of profitable production, they
are seeking to restrict it. The wheat
growers insist upon going to the antipo-
DIES for binder Irvine, while a million
acres of fax fiber is wasted in adjoining
fields, and when they could produce
hemp enough within six months to bind
the wheat of the world. The cotton grow
ers want to go to India for jute, which
will grow in their cotton fields as readily
as weeds. If we will not produce the
Irvine to bind our sheaves, or the jute or
hemp or flax to cover our bales, we shall
have no right to complain of 80 cents
per bushel for the one or cents per
pound for the other.
During the last ten years more than
1900, 900 workers in agriculture, armed
with improved implements, have been
added to the 100000 that were making
corn and wheat and cotton; and shall
they still insist on the same limited
range of effort, walk in the same fur
rows their fathers turned, and seek to
live and die in the same overdone and
profitless routine? If so, agricultural de-
preston will become chronic and in
tensified to a degree unknown at pres
ent. Shall farmers hug the chains of
their dependence, limit the range of
their industry, refuse to strike out into
new paths and sink into comparative
idleness and poverty? There are millions
of them too intelligent and enterprising
and ambitious to cooperate in any such
cchap,n Of valf Iot;a,