The semi-weekly messenger. [volume] (Wilmington, N.C.) 1897-1908, 1897-04-06
FALL IN PRICES OF FARM PRO
DUCTS.

All men who think and cad and try
tn find out causes of depression ana d
cure for the hard times know that the
farmers nave lost very greatly through
the wears from the depression In prices.
Last year The Messenger brought out
facts and figures many times IN regard
to the low prices of farm products and
ts,e great losses entailed upon the
farmers because of this vast loss. 1T
cuts them off from purchasing. Men
cannot buy when money Is gone anu
there are no prospects of pay. with
roducts lower h a year g the
outlook is depressing. In many or the
best counties in North Carolina where
ten or twenty years ago 1T was indeed
"a land of Goshen" and money
abounded, it is now a Ian Of depres-
sion, of poverty. of people in debt with
no money, with property at not more
than half the former value.
Manufacturers are now suffering
because the farmers are suffering. Is
not that so? How can farmers f1ourlsh
with prevailing prices-with the falling
professor lne last tCh yS"Ao
informed of editors on such questions ID
Mr.. Wharton Barker. of philadelphia
He recently said in his able weekly,
The American, a republican paper
that Gin plain English, the market for
manufactured goods made by the
armer raising cereals was SIPS, OOO, 600
larger in 1885 than it was in 1895. Here,
then, we nave the key to manufactur-
ing depression. But we have not got
the whole key yet. TT must be remem-
bered that our farming population mas
grown during the past ten and twenty
years, and as it has grown so should
nave grown the amount of money
spent in the purchase of manufactured
goods"
He goes on to show that if the crop
Of cereals in 1896. had fetched the
prices either in 1875 or in 1885, that
the difference in favor of the rme
would have been enormous. He says
that the average value of the yield OF
the cereal crops OF the United States
was $11.S6 per acre in 1875, $8.41 in 1888,
Sc. 70 in 1895, and $6.51 in 1896.
He shows from government ables
that the six crops Of corn, wheat. rye,
cats. barley and buckwheat for 1896 ag-
gregated in dollars 1917. 069, 900. At the
prices Of 1S95-the products would
have fetched $1,o12. sol, $50. See the diff
ference in 1896 and 1850, 4S2, $50.
Even that sum distributed would
make q. big difference in the condition
OF thousands Of farmers.
When we go back ten years it is very
much worse. At the prices Of 1885, the
farmers last year would have realized
81. 257, 594. 22O-a difference Of the vast
sum of s2S5, 525, 220. Looking to 1875 for
the contrast and the difference is still
greater. The six products at the prices
OF 1875. would lave brought the farm
sers 81, TT, III. $50 or sSO5, O4S, 23O more than
they received-nearly double h they
got. These figures, based on official re-
ports, show why manufacturing and
trade and all kinds of business are
depressed. The of
The American is worth copying and
thinking over. You may shut your eyes
and turn from them, but you cannot
blot the facts or avoid conclusions.
eff our CORNERS had not been depriv-
ed of this $500, 900. 900 by the fall in
prices since 1875; if they had had the
$500, 900, 900 to spend in 1896 that they
would have had if the fall in prices
had not deprived them of the fruits of
their toll, there would have been no
manufacturing depression to record.
Rut our farmers did not AVE this to
spend; they actually derived from
their cereal crops s45, 600, 900 less in