Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1896-08-04
4 Word With the Farmers.

The farmers of Maine, AS we'll as those
of other parts of the country. will lay
the foundations of many mistakes and
misfoftunes if they believe that spec
ious statement going the rounds of the
free silver press to the effect that their
farms and the prices of their products
have decreased in value because sill
yer was "demonetiZed" twenty-three
years ago. That had no more to do with
reduction of prices than ii had to do
with the falling price of Aroostook po-
tatoes last year when more We're raised
in the country than the people could
eat. If an Aroostook politician should
come down here into Kennebec county
and tell the farmers that free silver
would have made the Aroostook pota-
toes that sold for ten cents a bushel
worth one dollar bushel you would
either laugh at and boot him and feel
insulted to think he should take YOU to
be fools or else you would tell him that
YOU did not like that kind of dollar.
He would, however. be assuming No
more ignorance on your part than does
the free silver agitator who tells you
that the low price of wheat and farm
lands is due to lack of free coinage
law. You know, or ought to know, as
it is fact of common knowledge. that
the price of your farms went down be-
cause fertile lands throughout the great
West We're practically given away and
at the same time wild lands in South
America and other parts of the world
We're taken up ana cultivated, mac hinery
was invented and production outstrlpped
consumption. To quote an eminent
authority even after the Self-rake
reaper came into use in the later seven
ties, it took four horses and five men to
cut and bind as many acres as three
horses and one boy can now cut clean
er. bind more firmly and leave in bet
ter shape for shocking" Moreover this
new land was virgin soil, it produced
abundantly and did not need the ap-
plication of costly fertilizers New rail
roads were built to carry away its pro-
ducts. 1t was as nevita Bile that the pric,
of those products should decline. farm
ing be overdone and hard times follow.
as it was that oVerproduction of pota-
toes should damage the prosperity of
the Aroostook potato grower. If the
farmer is led to believe any such non
sense as this about free silver changing
the relation Of supply todemand he will
fall into grievous error. He will not
only act as the catspaw of the million
are silver mine owner but he will rem
der his own condition still worse, for if
the real conditions can be generally I'M
derstood there will be fewer to rush in
and attempt to make a living that way
ana thus lnJure the farmer already en-
gagged in that pursuit. If the farmer
Tails into the error that all needed to
successfully carry on his place is a little
legislation instead of little exercise of
good judgment and accommodation to |
circumstances that can't be helped. on |
ms part he will be we'll started on the road |
To iinancial failure. He will become mn
easy and dissatisfied instead of imbued |
with the spirit of making the best of |
what cannot be avoided. He should seq |
that instead of cheapenng a dollar it |
should be kept sound. that confidence
should bereStored so that industry NAV
again be alive. a wise protective tariff
be had that shall keep the men. whom |
the American farmer feeds. busy at |
good wages rather than a tariff that |
keeps the foreign laborer, who buvs
much of his breadstuffs from Russia |
lndla or South America, busy while
American labor is idle If ever there
was need of the American farmer stick
ing to facts and an honest dollar it is
now Don't let few Missionaries dema-
sogues, fellows in politics for Just wha,
there is in it. fool you.