The record-union., 1893-09-18
Shipping Agricultural Products.

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Shipping Agricultural Products.
EDS. RECoRD-UNIoN: In reply to "a
Massachusetts, Farmer" in the RECORD
UNION of the 10th. on my article in your
issue of the 14th, permit me to say that
he has not read the article he criticises as
thoroughly as he should have doneFjudg-
ing from the lower half of his commune
cation. l nowhere stated that the prob
lem could be solved by the Government
buying out the railroads." or that it
the Government - is to conduct the
transportation business at COST" What /
said was as follows:
To meet the transportation question
would suggest national legislation that would
change our present method of product trans
portatiOu to the same system as now in Oper-
/ alton by the United States postoffice in the
! forwarding of mail matter, and in charge OF
| that department.
| To Illustrate: A fruit-grower at San Rafael
! wishes to send 500 pounds OF peaches to San
| Francisco. He obtains a stamp at his post
| Office (Which may be say three times the size
of a postal card and on pasteboard; he at
taches same to one of his crates and delivers
same to the postal clerk at railroad compa-
nys depot. Say the value of the stamp is 81.
Another grower in Chico also wishes to send
q like quantity of peaches to the same desti-
nation, and he too obtains 81 stamp, ana
the fruit is forwarded the same way. a third
grower in Sacramento County wishes TO Tor
ward like quantity 10 New York, and he
likewise obtains a 81 stamp, and the 1rult
goes on to New York.
In short, land products IN their natural
state are to be forwarded in any quantity TO
any destination just the same as other mall
matter and subject to similar conditions.
When it is considered that paper-covered
books and other literature" Is sent by the
publisher to any part of the United States IN
any quantity at one cent per pound, or $40
per hundred, and that this literature" is for
warded on fast trains, then, in that event. the
proposition here offered is only new TO the
extent that farm products take an equal rank
with literature.
Last Thursday I received case of
books from the publisher in New Iork,
weighing 165 pounds, for 81 90 cents; these
books came here in six days, and were
brought here by the United States Gov
ernment through its Postoffice Depart
ment.
Can grower send 165 pounds of peaches
from Sacramento to New York on pas
senger time for 81 90?
No, indeed. Well, in my judgment it
would result in greater good to the Gov
ernment and to the people-to all the peo-
ple-if the peaches, and all other farm
products. could be sent that way rather
I than literature.
We all know in advance that the Gov
ernment pays the railroad from three to
six cents per pound for carrying the
books, yet it only charges the publisher
one cent a pound. Who pays the differ
ence? Who, but the people. Every tax
payer, producer and consumer pays to
make up the loss. Yes, even foreign
manufacturers who send their goods to
the United States through the Custom.
house pay portion of the difference.
In these book shipments the publishers,
the writers, and merchants are benefited,
and were farm products forwarded that
way the farmers would be benefited.
Massachusetts Farmer tells us that
farmers are dependent on the success OF
manufacturers for a market, and cites as
evidence conditions at the opening of the
civil war.
The conditions to-day and those OF
thirty years ago are so radically different
that they can hardly be compared. Thirty
years ago almost every township had its
own peculiar price current for farm pro-
duct; but to-day the price is fixed for us
in the Liverpool and London Exchange,
and the ruling price there governs
throughout, and the further the distance
from the Exchange the more there is de-
Quoted from the Exchange price for
transportation.
On the other hand manufactured goods
are cheapest at the greatest distance, but
we are prevented from buying at the
cheapest rate by the tariff, therefore the
Workmen and manufacturer are pro
tected." Now every living human be-
ing in the United States pays for this
protection-the farmer the mOst-and so
will all have to pay for the difference IN
rates if the farmer can have his products
forwarded at an even rate for 100 miles or
5000 miles, and the difference that the
farmer will save will be 'hiS protection.' -
No other country in the world needs
this as much as this, for no other country
is so far off from the Liverpool and Lon
don Exchange, and nowhere else in the
world is labor so high.
As long as virgin soil gave the farmer
! twenty sacks of wheat to the acre he
could overcome all obstacles. but when
the soil will only yield from five to ten
sacks he is handicapped, and unless pro-
tected he is on the highway to ruin and
poverty, and whenever we allow the
farmer to go TO the devil the republic will
go with him.
Massachusetts Farmer is inclined to
| be humorous at the expense of the idea OF
free tax" Consider now if the ratio
rate for distance carriage is done away
with; in other words, if 81 will carry 200
pounds 100, or 600, or 5000 miles of field
product, farming will become a very
/ prof table occupation, and unless check ed
would be likely TO place the major por-
ton of land in the hands of proxy farm
ers or landlords, and foreign ones at that,
and then viii come the English lord and
/ the Irish tenant. This would be even
worse than now, and to prevent this all
lands owned by aliens, and all on which
| there is renter, and lands not under
cultivation are TO be taxed as now; but
all lands cultivated by owners direct who
are or intend to become American citi-
zens are not TO be taxed on the land they
own and work. Such an advantage will
tend to make proxy farming and land
/ lordism and land-holding without crlti-
vation Improbable. AS for the counties
and States being wholly agricultural let
Massachusetts Farmer" please name
! them, bearing in mind that only lands
are to be exempt and not houses.
d. LUBIN.
Another Plea for the Trout.
EDS. RECORD UNION: A few days
since, while visiting friends on the