The National tribune., 1891-03-05
A NEGLECTED SOURCE OF WEALTH.

| n NEGLECTED SOURCE OF WEALTH..
To secure a steady and permanent pros
perity for our farmers it is vitality necessary
TO constantly widen the markets for them,
and TO utilize, as far as possible, every prod
net of their land
1t is simply financial suicide for farmer
TO rely wholly upon any one crop. 1t is
inevitable that every few years there will be
a partial or total failure of that crop, and
the margin Of profit in all kinds Of produce
is so low that it is almost impossible for him
TO recover from the blow Of the loss of his
main crop, and he is driven to mOrtgaging
and an unayailing strEggle with exorbitant
interest. II is this fact which helps TO make
interest so high in some Of the Interior
States. The money-lenders know the diff
Guilty that farmers have in recovering from
the loss Of a staple crop, and they make their
rates high enough TO abundantly reimburse
them for the trouble and expense they may
have in foreclosing upon the land and hold
ing it for sale. This is solid, ugly truth, but
one which farmers have not sufficiently con-
sidered.
The sovereign remedy for this is diversity
of crops and greater utilization OF all farm
products. This is a science which the
French Government and people have studied
and practiced with un1agging assiduity for
more than a century, with the result of
making France one Of the very richest
countries in the whole world. France has
relatively few natural advantages. She has
! less than three times the area of Kan
sas, with a soil of only fair fertility, no
mines of any great consequence, and few
other natural resources. Yet, on this limited
territory, she manages TO support in comfort
a population twO-thirds as great as our own,
and they have more money per capita than
any other people in Europe, except England,
and this, too, while she has constantly been
engaged in great wars and borne the enor-
nous burdens of immense standing armies
How does she manage TO do it2 Simply
by diyersifying her agriculture and making
the most Of everything that her soil will
produce. If she had followed the American
| plan, and allowed one farmer TO raise nothing
but corn or oats, and another wheat, and
another wine, she would have been as poor
as Spain and Sweden are. They have each
nearly as much good land as she has, but
they have not more than n fraction Of her
wealth, and they have not played anything
like the part in history that she has But
in France the Government and the people
have constantly studied how to get the most
out of everything, and keep every franc in
the country. Wealthy Frenchmen are not
/ found squandering their money abroad, as
| Americans, EnRlishmen and Russians do.
They spend it at home. If there is anything
that the French people want, il il produced
at home, and the money for it kept among
their own people. When they found a
century ago, that their greatest foreign out
lay was for sugar, they at once said, " We
will produce our sweets at home" and they
never rested until they found a way TO make
a French vegetable yield all the sugar their
people needed, and some to sell abroad.
The people and the Government were in
entire accord in this, and no step backward
was allowed TO be taken, though Republic
followed monarchy, an empire followed the
Republic, and after these a constitutional
monarchy, a second empire, and again a
Republic. Frenchmen may fight 10 the
death over Kings, Presidents and Emperors,
but they are all Of one mind when il comes
topromoting the material interests of France.
The Government built factories TO develop
industries, il established schools TO teach the
people the arts and sciences, and it en-
ployed scientists TO develop new methods OF
utilizing 10 the utmost everything that grew
upon or lay below the soil Of France.
Nothing was allowed TO be wasted. So rig
orous and thorough was this policy that at
the beginning Of the war of the rebellion ii
was estimated by one prominent economist
that the straw Of France was of more value
than the cotton crop Of this country.
Ii is such policy as this that we must pur-
sue if we are 10 make our farmers genuinely
prosperous We must stop the leaks which
now keep them poor, by providing uses and
markets for their waste products. Every
American farmer now wastes each year more
than would keep French farmer in luxury
Our farmers cannot get rich by merely rails
ing wheat and corn, hay and cattle and
hogs, but they would get rich if they could
add TO their gains from these sources profits
from things that they now allow to 20 Il
waste, but which the French farmer care,
fully markets. Take, for example, straw
, which Is such a source Of wealth 10 France
bat worth almost nothing to our farmers. We
paid Germany, France, Italy and China over
100000 last year for straw in the shape Of
hats and bonnets. That 100000 would
have lifted many marfgages la Rapsas a,,J