Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1913-08-25
Free Farm Produce.

The following letter from a respected
Waldo county friend is given to our
rural subscribers with the hope that
they will apply it to their own expert
ences and judgment. We believe it
true as gospel and its lesson clear:
Editor Kennebec Journal:
The Democratic puss. in justifying
the placing the farmers products on
the free list says that they have given
them free farming tools to offset that.
! wonder if they regard the Maine
farmers so densely ignorant that they
will accept so contemplate a sop, when
they ought to know that they will
treat ii with the disgust that it SO rich
" deserves. We all know that the
prices of farm produce are very much
higher than they were Is or 20 years
ago: that farmers are now receiving
more nearly a just compensation for
their crops than they ever got before.
Now the price of plows, harrows, horse
rakes, moving machines and other
farming tools are no higher than they
We're IL or 20 years ago. ! bought a
sulky pillow 10 years ago and paid $40
for it, cash. / can buy here the same
pillow, much improved, at the same
price. / bought at the same time a
five-foot moving machine for S45; and
the same machine, improved, six-foot
cut, is selling here today for $45: and
can quote you actual prices of various
others farming tools to further prove
the relative low cost of farm machin-
aspt fslxs h
the free list, the Maine farmer could
buy farm implements Is per cent
cheaper than at present, (Which was
the rate collected last year according
to the Democratic Senate Finance COM
mittee's reporD ii would amount to
less than 100000 a year, or less than
500 to each farmer in the State. But
If the claim be true that taking off the
duty will lower the price of farming
tools, equally true is it that by taking
tile duty off the farmers produce will
just as easily lower the price of what
he has to sell Applying this rule (and
il we apply it to one side we must t.
the other) by taking the duty off tbs
farmers eggs. he will lose in one veal
in this State $750,000, or over six times
as much as he will save on his farm
ing tools. Applying the same rule L
his entire crop and $4,000. 900 will mo-
cover the Maine Farmers loss on hi:
produce for a single year
But Maine farmers would never u.s.
foreign made tools. They are inferior
| to our own make. as every one know:
who has seen them. And if they wer'
not, there is no reason why they cal
not buy them, for we can buy all tn,
| farm machinery in England We wan
| and import it free of all duty, for Their
| Is no duty on any farm implement be
tween this country and England. Ant
we surely cannot buy it any cheaper il
| Canada. because good part of th'
( tools sold there are made by brancl
i factories of American concerns LOCATED
4 there. And it is not reasonable to sup
| pose that they will send their goods
over here and sell them in competition
| with their own productions.
| In the face of all these facts, it doe
| not seem possible that any Main,
| farmer could vote to send man t,
| Congress to vote to put almost the en-
| tire produce of our farms on the fire,
| list, which is far worse than the re
| ciprocity policy which they so con
| demned in the last campaign.
c. Z. Smith.
Thorndike. Me-. Aug. q. 1913.