Kansas agitator. [volume] (Garnett, Kan.) 1890-1905, 1890-08-11
SOME or THE CAUSES.
Reasons why Farmers Do Ut and Cam
not Make Any HeadWAy.

Everything a farmer has to sell is very
low; everything, or at least nearly every
thing, that the farmer has to buy is COM
paratively high. Wheat over large
proportion of the region in which it is
produced brings the raiser but fifty cents
per bushel. The price of grain harvest
ers and self binders, however, remains
the same as when wheat was worth 81 q
bushel in the place where it was raised.
The same is the case with the plow that
turned the furrow, the harrow that pull
verified the soil and the seeder that put
In the crop. Everything that is turned
off from the farm is very cheap, but
everything that is turned out from the
factory is dear The old scale of prices
for farm products has all been changed,
but the scale of prices for the products
of manufactures remains unchanged.
Beef. mutton and wool are all low, but
posts and wire necessary to fence past
ure cost as much as they ever did. The
cost Of procuring materials and putting
them together so as to afford protection
to animals during storms and in winter
ndS uOU Dttu IOouCCN WAOu oAA OhO W.
cline in farm products. The price OF
cloth is not affected appreciably by the
fall in wool. A farmer may get small
price for the hides he has to dispose OF,
but he pays high price for the boots,
shoes and harness that he is obliged to
purchase. Potatoes are cheap, but the
bags in which they are put and the
wagon that is used for taking them to
market cost as much as when potatoes
brought twice the money they do at
present. It is also noticeable that the
rates of transportation and the commits
sion merchants charges for selling them
are as high us when potatoes brought 81
q bushel.
Formerly the price of articles re-
CURED for food governed the price OF
almost all other articles. The price of
almost everything was governed by that
of wheat, as that was regarded as the
most important of all products. All
this is changed now. Farmers have
nothing to do in regulating prices. They
take what is offered for their products.
They are too numerous and too widely
scattered to combine. The price of
nearly every article they are obliged to
purchase, however. is regulated by asso-
Citations and combinations formed among
manufacturers.
The manufacturers of nearly every i'm
portant article combine to limit pro-
duction and keep up prices. They even
combine to prevent the establishment OF
manufactures similar to their own. In
many departments OF manufacturing
there is no competition between differ
ent establishments. A uniform scale of
prices is adopted, which is rigidly ad-
hered to. In many cases our patent
laws and tariff system enable them to
establish and perpetuate the most OPP
pressve monopolies. The western farm
or learns the price of wheat and pork by
reading the market reports of Liverpool.
He gets no information about the prices
of cloth and articles made from iron
and steel by consulting the quotations
in the papers of Manchester. Sheffield
and Birmingham.
These quotations are of no value in
this country, except it may be to enable
our enterprising manufacturers to double
the figures. The producers of articles
of food in this country are obliged to
compete with the producers of similar
products in every part of the world, but
our manufacturers, whose goods farm
ers are obliged to have, have no compe-
tition except among themselves. AS be-
fore stated they generally manage to
prevent such competition. With such Il