Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1896-11-23
SECRETARY MORTON
Tells Of count'y's Produce and Mar
kets at Home and Abroad.
England and Her Colonies Take Over Malt Of
All Our Exports.

ture shows. that with the $3.50. 900 which
may be saved from the appropriations
for the current fiscal year, there will
have been covered back into the treas
ury ny his department since March Z.
1898, over $2,000,00O. That this great
economy was effected without loss of
efficiency he attributes in a large de-
gree to the improvement in the per-
sonnet of the force under the civil SER
vice rules.
One more step Secretary Morton
deems necessary to complete the sys-
TEN of civil service in his department.
This is the appointment of permanent
director in charge of bureaus and
scientific Investigations" who shall be
designated to serve as acting secretary
in case of the absence simultaneously
of the secretary and assistant secre-
tary. He declares that the chiefs of
the scientific bureaus and divisions and
their assistants do the actual thinking
and reasoning for the development of
agricultural science and that these per-
sons are not adequately compensated.
He states that during the past few
years SO skilled experts in the depart
iiiVIit NiNt ietNc telt II " TAKE POSI-
tons in institutes of learning at salar-
les averaging fully so per cent higher
than they were getting from the gov
eminent.
The inspection OF animals intended
for food is treated of at length. Mr.
Morton urges that government inspec-
ton should be extended to all animals
intended for human food whether for
consumption in the United States or
abroad. and he maintains that the cost
of this inspection should be paid by the
packers. Total consumption of meat in
Great Britain for the year was loo, 00t
tons-i5 per cent. of which was pro-
duced at home and the remaining 25
per cent. being imported. OF live meat
arriving in the United Kindom. during
the first six months of 1896. the United
States supplied 1910 per cent. of the
cattle and 1925 per cent. of the sheep
Testimony of the department repre-
sentatives abroad is that cattle from
the United States arrive in English
ports in excellent condition.
American packers are not partici-
pating in the profits of growth in the
consumption of swine flesh and hog
products in Great Britain as much as
they ought to, because they do not
cure the meats to suit the British de-
mand: and on the other hand the Dan
ish and Canadian packers are increas-
ing their shipments every year. Ameri-
can bacon averages about two cents
o pound below the continental. and
Irish bacon about cents below the
English.
Shipments of American horses to
England is steadily increasing In
1898, Great Britain took 3.737 Ameri-
can horses. nearly $4,000 in 1894. and
$4,000 in 1895, and during the first nine
months of 1896 more American horses
We're shipped into England than in any
previous II months.
The seeds distributed gratuitously
by the government during the fiscal
year weighed $50 tons and occupied 80
mail cars in transit. The cost of car
rying them through the mails was
ever $4,000. Enough seeds were sent
out gratuitously for planting Is square
miles of garden. Each congressman
received enough to plant 1872 acres.
For the current year at the present
gress to be expended in the purchase
Of seed will make each congressman's
quota double what it was last year
The secretary calls this an unneces-
sary and wasteful expenditure of pub
lie money and hopes Congress may
in good time put a stop thereto.
Secretary Morton refutes the idea pre-
vailing that farms in the West and South
are more heavily burdened with mort
cages than those of the East and North
east. The states along the north Allan
bered with farm mortgages. New Jersey
carries a debt of this kind greater in pro-
portion to its farm valuations than any
state in the Union.
Referring to the stress of competition
the American farmer is compelled to en-
dure, Mr.. Morton calls attention to near
ly 100000 farms of SO acres each given
away by the government under the
years and to the amount donated under
the timber culture law equivalent to over
9oo00o more farms of the same size. 1t
was impossible. he says, for farmers in
the old states TO profitably sell their pro-
ducts in competition with those of the
newer states. grown upon lands which
cost their owners nothing.
During the fiscal year ended. the ex-
ported products of American farms ag-
gregated S510.000.0O0. an increase of ST.
100000 over the preceding year. In spite
VI tliiS tHClC was a td1lIHk Oll Ill the per
centage of agricultural products ex-
ported. due to the unprecedented sale
abroad of American manufactured goods.
The principal market for American
products is found in Great Britain and
her colonies. These English speaking
people bought IS per cent of all the ex-
ports from the United States in the fiscal
year 1896 Together with Germany,
France, Holland and Belgium they pur-
chased $40 per cent. of our entire output.
Secretary Morton asks if nation which,
like the United States. possesses the
greatest power and facilities for produc-
ing and manufacturing things which the
world demands is not destined to mono
police the markets of the globe.
In the contest for feeding and furnish
ing mankind, Notwithstanding the fierce
met all over the globe. Amer
lean agriculture. manufactures and com
merce are steadily gaining more trade
thus furnishing enlarged wages fund and
a gold basis out of which some millions
of American laborers and skilled artisans
draw their yearly remuneration.