Iowa County democrat. [volume] (Mineral Point, Wis.) 1877-1938, 1908-06-18

Mann. the WelI-knoWn comedian.
wood now, Austin" Five and a half,
sawed and split"
A man and team draws wages OF
four dollars day. Add dollar for the
third thorse-fve dollars for the wages
Austin could have made teaming for
someone else. He can haul two cords
a day, receiving 81. It costs $3.50 a
cord to have wood felled and cut into
four-foot lengths, sixty cents to saw it
and sixty to split it. This leaves
Austin at the end Of his day sixty
cents profit, thirty cents a cord. All
but thirty cents f that cord of wood
which took forty and sixty years to
grow was for Iabor.
But l still believe in the possibiIi-
ties of New England agriculture, il
only the ruling powers Of New Eng
land can be made to take it seriously.
New England has to eat, it buys what
it eats from the west, the cost OF
freight has to be added to the original
cost. Raise this food in New England
and add to yofr ordinary profit, the
freight bill saved and live happy. No
where are there such good markets,
nowhere can you buy such good lane
so cheap. 1t looks easy. Raise GOOD
things and sell them in the good mar
kets and make good money. I do no.
observe any undistributed middle in
these syllOg;sms. The trouble is in
the distribution of the middlings,
shorts, oats, all of which are raised
freight bill after all, for your chickens
and cattle live on grain that has paid
that bill and it is no great matter
whether the west feeds it's grain ana
ships it's chickens, or ships grain and
New Eng%nd feeds it to chickens.
The things you do raise, potatoes, tur-
nips, onions, are cultivated by horses
fed On western grain and sometimes
even on western or Canadian hay. So
you don't escape the freight bill after
aldo not add it to your profits.
Marketing Machinery.
The New England farmer has
trouble selling his products. Commits
sion merchants fatty tell you they do
mot care for New England products
They have so long relied on outside
sources for their supplies that they
don't like to take the trouble to
change. And then home agriculture
has been in allegiance for so long that
they are afraid they cannot depend
upon it as a steady source, in case
they abandon their connection with
other sources. There is justice in
their complaint that the supply from
the farmers is desultory. New Eng
land lacks a marketing machinery, i
system Of buyers to handle supplies
which a system of producers could
furnish. The farmers themselves do
not know how to market their pro
duce, and so they don't try to raise
any. The commission men must have
their supplies regularly and single far
mers cannot guarantee to meet their
needs. So they buy Of western, south
ern, and York State middlemen.
Capital Sent Away.
There is another cause of the de-
cadence Of New England agriculture,
which, though I have never seen it
mentioned, seems TO me at the root OF
the whole matter, a difficulty not to
be overcome quickly. There is little
capital for agriculture, it was all sent
west. New England agriculture died
that western agriculture might live,
killed itself by furnishing the capital
TO make the latter successful. New
England likes TO send her money away
from home. That is human trait.
but it has its highest development
here. Think of the millions she has
sunk in sun-baked lands in Kansas, in
gullible squanderings in every western
state.
Restoration Of New England agricul-
ture will be by something like the p
cesses that must go on 10 restore fl
nancial confidence and bring back good
times. The market and the producer
must be adjusted. A marketing mach
merry must be perfected. Now 1t is
all disorganized, disordered, mal-co-
Ordinated.
Where New England ExceIs.
I believe that New England agricul-
ture has possibilities. I believe thai
the famboyant geniuses who write
Drospectuses of western and southern
immigration projects, could with no
greater sacrifice of conscience employ
their roseate adjectives in setting
forth what might be. done here. Catch
an apple man Of the Ozarks or south
arn Illinois, and he'll confess that his
apples are dry and cottony compared
TO the delicious fruit OF New England.