Connecticut western news., 1893-09-28
V ALUE OF AN ACRES PRODUCT.
,tals. .s7s.2l 75.s4 6s.H $40 4s.A 4o.75

Totals .s7s2l 75.s4 6e.42 ss.4o 4s.A 4o.75 Average an
 acre. .sl5ei I61s u.ss 1l.es s.se aD
 If, as is altogether probable, the rev. enue derived from the cultivation of each acre of the staples named has not since 1885 been in excess of the cost of production, then it is readily seen that the workers among the 10000, ,000 who inhabit the farms of the United States have for eight years received no more than laborers' wages and could pur- chase but the barest necessaries. As prices now current are 21 per cent below the average of 1886 to 1890, it follows that the products of the farm are now sold below the cost of production, and that the farmer is wholly without pur- chasing power other than such as results from his wages as a common laborer.
 Granting that present prices even cover the cost of production, or say $S 15 an acre, it is evident that every cent that can be added thereto will be in the na- ture of profits or rent and will add that much to the purchasing or debt paying power of the cultivator, but there is
 
 represent the actual average cost of pro ducing the staple products, and that the farmers debt paying and purchasing power has been reduced to that of the lower class of labor and will afford him while present prices obtain but the means of the most meager subsistence. That present prices are below the cost of production appears probable from the fact that outside few favorably situ- ated communities there has been no re- duction of farm indebtedness in recent years, while the farmer has over wide areas from year to year been reducing his purchases of the products of manu- facture, although his revenues have been 21 per cent above the present level.
 As 206, ,000, ,000 acres are now employed in growing staple crops, it follows that the power of the farmer to purchase is this year $1 ,563, ,0OO, ,000 less than it would be if he was receiving the price of 1866-70 for his great staples. If the prices now realized in the farm markets equaled those received from 1871 to 1875, the farmer would this year be able to spend S1 ,450, ,000, ,000 more for manufac- lures and other commodities than he will be able to spend with prices at the pres ent level. Were prices now equal to the average of those obtained from 1876 to 1880, the purchasing power of the farmers would this year be augmented by $768, 100000.
 Should the crops of 1893 give average yields and the prices equal those current from 1881 to 1885, the farmers spending power would be $645, ,000, 900 greater than with present prices. Even with prices as low as those prevailing from 1886 to 1890, the farmers of the United States would have $358 1000, 900 added to their debt paying and purchasing power in 1893, and like advances on the other products of the farm would create an ample fund for building and general i'm provement, thus employing more labor.
 Much stress is laid upon the necessity of cheap food for the wageworker, but what possible benefit can be derived from d cheapness that deprives the 8O,- 000, ,000 who produce food and fiber of the ability to keep the wageworker em- ployed by buying the products of artisan and operative?
 Doubling the present price of wheat would probably add the price of six or eight days labor to the cost of the years supply of bread for the average family. but with wheat at an average of $1 per bushel at the farm markets and other farm products at proportionate prices there would be no idle mills, and the earner of wages would have that easily procured and constant work which would assure him the continuous ability to buy bread. Would not that be far better than existing conditions and bread unattainable, though low in pricei
 We recently published statement to the effect that the 1,600 young women employed in the Warner corset factory at Bridgeport, Conn.,, had been reduced to half time; that 600 of them were un- able to buy food and were fed by the charity of their employer. Such condi- tions exist because the women upon the farms are unable to renew their corsets with wheat selling west of the Missis. sippi at from 80 to 40 cents bushel
 The relation between the price of wheat, the lack of power to buy corsets and the idleness and inability of the women of Bridgeport to buy bread is az obvious as that between the earth's movements and day and night.
 However people may have disagreed about the late Zach Chandler's states manship, no one questioned his success as merchant, and this was due as much to his power of discerning economic con- ditions affecting his customers as to the unerring judgment with which he pro- vided salable goods. Soon after the close of the civil war, being asked if he could find sale in the farming districts for 8 lot of rich dress goods which he was shipping to small inland towns. his reply was characteristic:
 .Sell theml Sell themi Why, the women on the farms of Michigan have discarded homespun and calicoes for silk and merino, and no farmers son now thinks of going out to blow unless dressed in doeskin trousers and oalfskin boots. Don't you know that wheat ia selling for g bushelS'
 Such was the late MT. Chandler's way of stating the operation of that economic law which enables people to buy liberal ly of the products of others.
 Mills and furnaces are idle and oper- atives unable to buy bread because a large part of the 30,000, 900 inhabiting the farms have lost their purchasing pow CT; the purchasing power has been lost because the products of the soil have over wide areas sold at or below the cost of production; farm products bring in- adequate prices because primarily of the existence during recent years of 8 cultivated acreage in excess of the worlds requirements, and there are those who believe that the depressing influence of this excessive acreage upon prices has been intensified and augmented by methods employed upon the produce ex- changes.-New York Sun.
 A Deserter's Good Fortune.
 A deserter is not always a deserter, avan thouUh branded with a oreat hip