The Vermont watchman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1883-1911, 1898-03-23
AGRICULTURAL.
The American Farmer and His For
eign Market.

1t begins to be an open secret that
the American manufacturer is close
crowding his foreign &C mpetitors. Sew
eral articles have appeared in English
and German periodicals concerning
this development of our foreign trade,
and it is giving no little uneasiness to
those nations. Very recently the pa
pers have chronicled the fact that for
eigners have given several large and
important orders to American manu-
featuring firms. Those people are COM
ing to understand that there is we'll
defined superiority in goods and articles
Of American manufacture. The bust
ness men of our land are noted for
their push and energy, but the Ger
mans are putting great deal of the
same thing il to their foreign trade.
But it seems that the German foreign
trade, while it has developed amazing
ly of late, has been fostered at the ex-
pense of the comfort and well being of
the German workingman. To under
sell in foreign markets, wages have
been reduced to the starvation point.
But enough Of this:
1t is concerning the American far
mer's foreign market that we wish to
speak. While American business
energy has done 80 much for our manu-
facturers, it has been the very ruin of
some of our most important branches
of agricultural export trade. Take the
foreign trade in butter. Every YER
mont farmer knows that one reason
why butter has been 30 low is that the
export trade in butter is nearly ruined.
What has ruined h2 American bust
ness enterprise. Is it not this which
has led few millionaire manufactur-
ers of composition of lard, grease,
cotton seed oil, and tallow, said compo-
sition being so worked up and colored
as TO initiate butter, to sell in foreign
markets this composition as pure genu-
inc Yankee butter? And the unsus-
pecting foreigner has bought this stuff,
found out WI at it is, and has wisely de-
cided not to buy any more Yankee
butter. Just how it has come about
we are at loss to explain, but it seems
that the government of these United
States of America is 80 constituted that
it is unconstitutional for it to throttle
any such purely (?) business enter
prise, though it has come about that by
reason of long continued effort on the
part of certain farmers's organizations,
this business has been somewhat cur
tailed of late, and the present secretary
of agriculture has been doing his best
to get American butter reinstated into
favor among foreign people. Ameri-
can cheese has in the same way been
driven out of foreign markets, until
after hard fight, Congress passed a
law which has throttled the filed cheese
business at home, and has gone far
toward killirg it abroad. On the other
hand Canada has quietly stepped in
and profted by our calamity. No imi-
tation butter can be made or sold there,
and other countries know that when
they buy Canadian butter it is good and
genuine, just as they have known that
American butter was largely spurious
product. Now at this late hour, when
the American dairy man has been near
ly ruined, when the oleo makers have
piled up their millions, and when the
foreign butter market has passed into
other hands, the government is feebly
trying to do something for the Ameri-
can dairyman's foreign market. 1t is to
be hoped that something can be dene,
but it is a sad piece of business all
around.
But it is the strange lack of this bust
ness energy on the part of the Amer
lean farmer which accounts in part for
the condition of the foreign dairy
hCbs 4dhC u SapO III pOlnts OlhtG
flour became 80 high, a set of American
"business" men have been enriching
themselves by adding white corn meal
to this distinctively American product.
Had this adulteration hurt only the
farmer it might have gone ON for years
without any attention on the part of
the government. But it 80 happens
that this particular adulteration touches
the pockets of the owners of the great
Touring mills, and especially is it af-
fecting the foreign market. Now the
great milling companies do not intend
to have their foreign business ruined
by adulteration, and SO they are work
ing to get law passed by Congress to
nip this evil in the bud. 1t looks as
though they would at once succeed in
30 doing as they are united and mean
business. 1t is not too much to think
that if the farmers had gone to work
with equal energy, and had pushed
matters 80 as TO force Congress, as it