The Seattle post-intelligencer. [volume] (Seattle, Wash. Terr. [Wash.]) 1888-1914, 1891-10-29
SEATTLE. THURsDAT. OCT. 20.
NO AGRICULTURAL DISTRESS.

NO AGRlCULTURAL DlSIREso.
Colonel Polk will find Washington and
Oregon rather barren missionary ground
for the propagation of his political quack-
cries. The colonel is too late; the harvest
is so good that the farmers with sentiment
tai grievances to air are fewer than they
were year ago. The sub-treasury scheme
has no intelligent, earnest, honest advo-
cate among our people; neither has free
silver coinage any sincere friends in the
Pacific states outside of few mine own
ers and their dependents. The farmers as
n class west of the Mississippi are not in
state of agricultural distress. save in spots
where the elements or the folly of the
farmer have created an exceptional situa-
ton of transient suffering.
II farmer, who has escaped unavoid-
able disaster through the elements, which
his forethought could not discern or avert,
Is in bad way, ii is due either to the fact
that he has located his farm in the wrong
place; that is, he has settled in the semi
arid and cyclone-cursed regions of Western
Kansas, Nebraska or Dakota when he
ought to have come to Washington or Ore
gon; or he is careless, thriftless or
thoughtlsss farmer. If a merchant or
manufacturer fails to make his business
pay it is either because he has chosen bad
location for his plant or he is poor man
ager.
In spite of the mortgaging and fore
closing that has been going on for twenty
hn sa cts Of oil
farmers. 1t is the big, not the small
farmer that has declined, for in Eastern
Nebraska and Kansas, in Western Iowa
and Missouri there were more large farms
twenty years ago than there are today.
The prosperity of the Western farmer is
shown by the fact that the Western
mortgage business has been source of
profit to the settler, the broker and the
capitalist. The amount invested in the
West in farm mortgages in Minnesota,
Iowa, Missouri. the Dakotas, Nebraska,
Kansas and Colorado has been enormous,
but the increase of the wealth of
these states has been vastly greater.
In Kansas IN 1870 the total tax
able wealth was 1896, 5S3,472 in
1883 it was 81, Az, $50, 7O6. Since 1880 the
assessed value of farm lands has doubled,
as has also the number of acres subject to
taxation. The wheat crop of Dakota in
1850 was 1880, 25S bushels, but in 1885 it
was 38. Ice, 553 bushels and in 1887 it was
62, 553, 449 bushels. Between 1854 and 1868
Kansas corn product was 32,575,675
bushels, and between 1879 and 1888 it
was go 81, 425 bushels.
The wheat and corn crop of these states
this year has been enormous, and on the
prices of last years crop the farmers of
these states were able. according to the
record published in May last, to greatly
reduce their mortgage debts.
In the Older portions of this new West
the relative mortgage Indebtedness Is
steadily decreasing, as assessed values are
increasing much faster than mortgage in
debtedness. When we pass from Kansas,
Nebraska and the Dakotas to Washington
and Oregon we reach a land where there are
ne farmers fallen into condition Of gem
eral distress unless they have been incom-
petent, recklessly speculative or thriftIess
because Of dissipated habits. The farmer
who overtrades in buying land will come
10 grief as certainly as the merchant or
manufacturer who oyertrades; the farmer
who has selected bad location for
his agricultural venture, or is a poor man.
sger will suffer as certainly as a mer-
chant or manufacturer who establishes
his plant in the wrong place or is bad
manager. There are times when depres-
sion in the value of farm products is uni
versal, just as there are times when the
iron trade is duh. or the lumber trade:
but there is nothing in the present con-
dition OF the American farmer that can he
righted by enacting specific remedies. like
the sub-treasury scheme or free silver
coinage.
The protective tariff has unquestionably
operated in tho interest of the farmer.
who dates the beginning Of his
improved condition back TO 1884
when the revenue tariff policy began
q give way 10 that of home protection.
Since October, 1850, there has been a de-
cline in the price of farming tools and i'm
plements, tinware. blankets. carpets. fam
nels, WOODEN clothing. shifting, calico,
gloves, hosiery, knit goods, thread, ginc-
ham, overalls, shee;ing, ticking, boots,
shoes, rubber boots, binding Irvine, hemp.
linen, oi.cloth. salt, pins, starch, straw
hats, sugar. wsshboards. washtubs and
wooden pals
There has also, on the whole, been an
advance in farm products and some fail in
manufacturing products, rs the following
quotations show;
FARM PRODUCTS