Orleans County monitor. [volume] (Barton, Vt.) 1872-1953, 1893-09-25


prices now current are 81 per cent below
the average Of 1856 to 1859, 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 49, Is
an acre, it is evident that every cent that
can be added thereto will be in the ma
| ture of profits or rent and will add that
much to the purchasing or debt paying
| power of the cultivator, but there is
| abundant evidence that So. Is does not
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 tho
means Of the most meager subsistence.
| That present prices are below the cost Of
production appears probable from the
fact that outside a few favorably stu
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
81 per cent above the present level
AS 206, 900, coo acres are now employed
in growing staple crops, it follows that
the power Of the farmer to purchase
is this year 81 1858, 600, 900 less than it
would be if he was receiving the price
of 1666-70 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 81 400, 000, 900 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 $76S, 900, 900.
Should the crops of 1898 give average
yields and the prices equal those current
from 1881 to 1885, the farmers spending
power would be 1915 900, 600 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 1858, 600, 900 added to their
debt paying and purchasing power in
1898, 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 a cheapness that deprives the 3d.
100000 who produce food and fiber of
the ability to keep the wageworker en-
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 81 per
bushel at the farm markets and other
farm products at proportionate prices
there would be no idle mills, and the
Garner 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 price?
We recently published statement to
the effect that the 600 young women
at Bridgeport, Conn.,, had been reduced
to half time; that 600 Of them We're I'M
able to buy food and were fed by the
charity of their employer. Such condi-
tons exist because the women upon the
farms are Unable to renew their corsets
with wheat selling west of the NIissis-
sippi at from 80 to 40 cents Il bushel.
The relation between TIE price Of |
wheat, the lack Of power to buy corsets
and the idleness and inability of the |
women OF Bridgeport to buy bread is as
obvious as that between the earth's I
and day and night
However people may have disagreed |
about the late Zach Chambers states !
no one questioned his success
as a 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-
yided salable goods. Soon after the close
Of the civil war, being asked if lie could
find sale in the farming districts for
lot of rich dress goods which he was
shipping to small inland towns, his reply
was characteristic:
ssSell them! Sell them! Why. the
on the farms Of Michigan have
discarded hoanespun and calicoes for silk
md merino, and no farmers son now
kinks of going out to pillow unless
dressed in doeskin trousers and caIfskin
boots. Don't you know that wheat is
elling for Sc q bushel?"
Such was the late Mr.. Chambers way
# stating the operation of that economic
aw which enables people to buy liberal
y Of the products Of Others
Mills and furnaces are idle and oper-
tives unable to buy bread because a
arge part Of the $1,000 Geo inhabiting
he farms have lost their purchasing pow
r; the purchasing power has been lost
ecause the products of the soil have