The progressive farmer. [volume] (Winston, N.C.) 1886-1904, 1895-07-16
THE BANE OF COMMERCIAL
AGRICULTURE.

Eds Country Ge1tlenoan:-Thee effect
of greed in dealing in the products
of the farm is disastrous. Adultera
tion is practiced in a thousand FORMS
Defective weights and measures are
found in every market; boxes and
crates are rarely three fourths of their
pretense in measure, and berry boxes
sometimes have nearly as much space
below their bottoms as above; the mid
dies of apple barrels are filed with un
merchantable fruit, with tops and bot
toms of selected specimens; wilted
vegetables are sprinkled with water
and sold ss fresh; ancient poultry is
rejuvenated with soda water, and
salted eggs appear as new laid.
In wholesale adulteration is capital
invested by the millions, and imitation
products are forced upon every mar
ket. o. late six times as much oleo
margarine as butter is exported, and
the makers of filled cheese are running
not only the foreign but the domestic
cheese trade. The disgusting grease
which takes the place of true casein,
and is sold as cheese, usually as full
milk cheese, nauseates the buyer, and
excites a prejudice against cheese as
an article of diet, which is really as
nutritious as meat, and cheaper, palat-
able and convenient, especially in the
luncheon dietary.
Men who pose as philantropists and
leaders in business and social life are
engaged in making and selling these
limitations, subsidizlng the press, de-
bauching Legislatures and controlling
public opinion, claiming the right to
deceive and cheat, to sell cheaper
product under the name of a dearer,
on the pretense that the counterfeit is
wholesome, and assuming that the un-
disputed right to make includes the
right to sell it under false pretenses
Because ''it is better than poor butter, 81
they assume the right to label bullock g
fat Jersey" or Creamery" print, to
color in close imitation of June butter,
and by every COncealment of it's true
nature, and every stimulation of the
most aromatic product Of the true
dairy, to dispose of a counterfeit at the
full price of the article counterfeited.
The law against oleomargarine is there
fore not for the purpose of preventing
a manufacture, but for the prevention
of fraud.
A recent example of commercial
greed is found in the almost unexampled
increase in the retail price of the best
cuts Of beef, the pretext being rise OF
a cent per pound live weight of beeves.
A similar advance has in years past
been made without affecting percept
IDLY the retail price. High prices are
already reducing consumption, which
at once affects iDjuriously the good
cattle markets, but the dealers will be
slow in hearing of a decline.
It is charged, so common has com
merciaI crook dness become, that un'
fair advantage, deception for gain, are
American traits; but this is mistake,
for our English friends and other
foreigners complain of the same ten
denotes of trade. 1t is failing of frail
human nature, yielding to that most
powerful motive, the love of money,
which we have good authority for re
gar0ing as the root of all evil.
That honesty is the best policy" IL
a truth forclbly illustrated by the losses
that have come to us through thest
dishonest practices. Unfortunately
innocent producers suffer with the
guilty. Exports are reduced, home