The record-union. [volume] (Sacramento, Calif.) 1891-1903, 1895-12-16
BOON FOR FARMERS.
Benefits of the Proposed Free Market
in San Francisco.
The Certainty of Profits From Small
Farms Would Stimulate Inn
migration.

San Francisco has excited great inter-
est throughout the State and has
brought to the Call and to w. H. Mills,
the gentleman who made the suggestion
through its columns, a great many in
quiries regarding the project. Thomas
Prather, a banker of Oakland, recently
addressed William II. Mills, asking for
further information, and the following
reply of Mr. Mills gives many additional
points of interest regarding the enter
prise:
A produce exchange in the first in
stance was for the purpose OF eXchang-
ing the things which one man raised Tor
things which he did not, but which his
neighbor raised. This free exchange
was the precedent of the modern
market.
In the cities Of Europe there are free
markets-placeS where people come and
at a mere nominal figure have an OPP
portunity of Offering what they have
produced either in exchange Tor other
products or tor money.
In modern times, barter having dis
appeared from our commercial system,
the rule is to exchange for money, but
the producer and the consumer are
brought together.
l. t1S 4liSl d0h 1SlilS5 Odl VI Gil
open, free market is the inspection OF
the goods offered. Stale and unwhole-
some goods are not permitted to be
sold. This possesses a sanitary value.
Unripe fruit is prolific of ailments,
while stale vegetables in their earlier
stages of decay are also unwholesome.
A free public market puts the quality
of the products offered under inSpec-
ton and thus conserves the health of
the city.
The second great advantage arises
out of the public supervision of quanti-
ties. In the open markets of the East a
man who offers wood by the cord with
less than a full cord of wood is fined.
Hay must have the weight that is de-
clared by him who offers it. All these
matters have been under successful
conduct in the various Eastern cities,
notably in Philadelphia and Cincinnati.
These features would be indispensa-
bic to a free market in San Francisco,
but we want StIlI another. We want a
market under such supervision as to
furnish to the raiSerS of products daily
information as TO the demand. This
new feature would be peculiar to Cali
fCrnia, and it is doubtful whether it
would be of much value anywhere else.
The vegetables and fruits which can
not find a local market had better be
left in the ground, upon the vines and
upon the trees. Nobody expects the
producers to raise things for nothing,
and there is no danger that the pro-
Queer will get rich.
The inherent tendency of modern
commercial methods is to congest
money in the commercial classes, or
what is known as the middle class. The
wealth generated by the industry of
people in modern times goes to the
oil tho In hOf nr0nlnVP6 in
the cultivation of the soil is rude and
lily paid, while skilled labor is more
adequately rewarded. Here in Cali
fornia we can raise garden Stuffs all
the year round. We have strawberries
in every month of the year; cabbage,
beets, lettuce and onions in their fresh
form are in the markets all the time.
Our climate and soil lend themselves to
gardening so naturally that living in
California should be cheaper than any
where else in the world. Cheap living
promotes our productive capacity. 1t
is a distinct aid to us in the competi-
ton which the world offers, and 1t
must be a cheap rate. Producers fall
ing to find a market for fruits in the
fresh form will preserve them by can
ming, drying, ETC., at home, and this
will increase employments in the coun-
try, as well as enhance the profit of
tundty of adding something to the
value of fruit by drying it or canning
il into the hands of the large canneries,
is an unWiSdom which tends to impov-
erish the cultivator Of the soil. Vege-
tables, as we'll as fruits, can be canned
and preserved in that way for ship
ment to other markets.
There are benefits to ensue from the
establishment of a free market of an
indirect nature which are too important
to be overlooked. The productiveness
of our soil would long ere this have
given us a large population if there had
been more profit arising out of its Guilt
walton. By the census of 1890 we had
/ ZS00 900 inhabitants in California Of
these $40, 900 reside in the cities, towns
and villages. over 100, 600 are engaged
in mining and the remainder may be
credited to agricultural pursuits. The
rich garden lands of our valleys are
capable of subdivision into five, ten and
tWenty-acre tracts, and these, under a
proper distribution, one which does not
rob the producer for the benefit of the
middle man, would have given us a
population of at least one million more
than we now have during our existence
as an American settlement.
I have expended much time. thought
and energy in trying to establish>com-
munity life upon small holdings. In
doing so I have met with the constant
derision of the large landholder. One
of these said to me within the past
wear that the man who in California
attempted to make a living on twenty
acres usually brought up in the county