The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1897-11-15

note especially where l think he has miss
ed the true point of the situation, which
just now eonfronts the industry of agri
culture. And when he writes in regard
to the great army of the unemployed who
waste their time in the cities and says
their labor cannot be employed on the
farms until farming becomes more profit
able than it has been of late, l cannot help
pointing out what / think is a great mis-
take, but one generally prevailing, and
the very secret of the present condition.
He forgets, or misses, the fact, that just
previously to making this statement he re-
marked that the presence of weeds-which
this unemployed army might remove from
the land-is one of the most effective CAUSES
of distress in the industry of agriculture
Just now we are all congratulating our
selves on the return of prosperity to the
agricultural interest. Alas, on what a foun-
dalton of horrors upon horrors piled is
this prosperity based! 1t is not a true pros
perity at all. 1t is the accidental happen
ing of short crops, and threatened star
walton in some places, and in others act
ual slow torture for want of food to mil
lions of our fellow creatures, whose lives
waste away slowly until want of food has
reduced the people to living skeletons,
clothed absolutely with mere skin The
little children of India have persisted by
thousands for want of food which their
parents could not purchase on account of
the greatly Increased prices t1 the words
markets. And yet, knowing this, we are
Joyfully congratulating ourselves and each
other on the improvement in the times and
the great advance in the price of our food
crops and claiming that is merely the ad-
vance wave of a continuing prosperity!
Alas for us if this is truel What hui
name mind can gather satisfaction from
such situation? 1t is not in any way any
proof of the recovery of our industry from
&c Il ct nr.sa
and the remarks of DR.. GLADDEN. go to show
this to be true. He finds no indication of
improved work on the farms. On the con-
trary his intelligent mind wonders wheth-
er or not the prevailing weeds will not
drive many farmers eff their land and
make them more recruits for the great
army of the unemployed. And he is right
can corroborate this statement that the
present condition of the farms everywhere
is far below that of thirty or forty years
ago. The culture of the soil is hardly
worth the name of 1t. 1t is not culture 1t
| is simply wringing from the unwilling soil
| indeed, the unable soil the last shred of
| its fertility. Agriculture is in a depressed
condition simply because there is not labor
| sufficient bestowed upon the crops. What
1t wants is that enterprise by which the
farmers shall go into the cities or else
where and compel the laborers to go to
work in the fields and remove these greedy
or crowded and starved to early death
Everything in all other industries has
advanced of late years and every step in
this progression has been to make human
labor more effective and cheaper its pro-
ducts in proportion. Everywhere we see
this extension of all industrial enterprise
by the general cheapening of the products
All but agriculture are enjoying this
marked prosperity due to improved pro-
cesses. 1t is true that his improvement
in mechanical construction and appliances
has thrown out of employment thousands
of men and horses, and so far as the lat
ter are concerned it has borne heavily
on the farmers. who have lost millions of
dollars in consequence. But this loss mas
been a general gain for the substitution
of machinery for the more costly horses
has largely increased the common wealth
of the nation in the economy of time and
labor and material thus secured.
When we leave the cities, the Wharves
of the seaports, the machine shops, the
mines and every great center of industry,
and go abroad into the fields we find still
the old-fashioned ways in vogue. There
are few Improvements except so far a.
the mechanic has aided the farmer in pro-
viding labor-saving implements and ma
chimes. But the weeds, the wastes of ma
nure, the misapplication of labor in short,
every old way of not doing things, still
existing to make the farmers labor in
effective, we cannot doubt but this alone
is the cause of the distress of agriculture
and of the poverty and consequent distress
of the farmers. What would have hap
pened had there been full crops in Europe
and no famine in India! Wheat would
have fallen to so cents or less, possibly,
bushel and of course other products would
have been correspondingly cheap. Then
we should have been considering the
causes of this depression, and those of us
ic
ing to convince the unhappy farmers that
before agriculture can become really pros
porous 1t must advance to the front in all
those ways by which only human labor
can become prosperous by improved cul-
ture of the soil, the total eradication of
all parasites-weeds included; the use OF
the best tools and live stock; in short, the
total regenerati ton of our industry and the
placing Of it on level mechanically and
scientifically with all other Industries