Year: 1879

absolutely necessary. The clothing of one | year was made to last four. The old wagon, | and cart, and harness were repaired over and over again, instead of buying a new one Farm tools were used as long as possible, and when they were worn out one thing was made to serve two purposes. The coat of paint needful to keep off shabbness from house and fence was not put on-neither could the leaky roof be replaced only tenn porarily patched up by shingle here and there.

 But five years will wear out utterly many very many things,an the time has now come | when the old clothes are almost in rags and hardly decent any longer. The wagon, the cart and the harness are all patchwork and there is nothing left to tinker and repair Double use of one tool has worn it down to the very handle. The house is actually rot ting for want of paint and the roof is hardly worthy of the name of shelter. Something must be done,or work must stop,and the very house go to decay overhead. The case is desperate. There is no choice in the matter. Money or no money, clothes, implements. | shingles and paint must be gotten somewhere or somehow.

 Hence the accumulated wear and tear of term of years must be replaced and repaired | now. Therefore the demand for work and for wares is good-better than for five years, or since hard times begun. This seems to be the true and natural explanation of the first | half of the common statement of our business | men.

 Nor is it difficult to understand their other words which follow. Money has been scarce for months past. There has been no recent influx Hence there is still short supply. To arrive at the true causes for this cramped financial condition of the community we must go back to the period previous to the begin | ming of the present crisis. What was the state of affairs then? Everything was infat- ed. Values and hence prices were far above their normal level. Even mems ideas were unnaturally large. This was one result of the war. It increased the prices of the chief articles of trade, and long after the cause ceased the effect remained. But "what goes up must come down." says the boy as he toss es his ball into the air. It is no less true in l finance The ball did come down in due time and moreover it hit good many on the head who were not ready to stand from under Take for example 100 bushels grain which the farmer had on hand in 1961 By merely holding them they increased in value 10 or 20 cents per bushel- $1O or $2O in his pocket was the result. But easy come easy go, and hence the money went for necessities or lux uries, too frequently the latter.

 Now prices never fall so rapidly as they rise. So say political economists. This de- layed the day of reckoning, but it came as we might certainly have expected. Take again the same simple illustration. One hundred bushels grain on hand now falls 10 or 20 cts per bushel in price and your cash on hand really shrinks $lO or $20. If the amount realized ten years before had been saved for a rainy day you would stand even; neither gainer nor loser. The extravagant ideas, or extra demands, however, of the war time and the after period has consumed it.

 These facts hold good of all branch es of trade and industry. They apply to As stock of goods as we'll as to B's gance of the war, followed by the reaction and contraction of the past five years, are at the root of our present lack of money.

 Yet this, if the chief reason for our finan- cial straits, is not the only one. believe our farmers have begun to feel more forcbly and more fully the effects of Western compe- ttion. Land of great natural fertility, culti- vated with improved implements and machin- cry, produces a bushel of gram far more cheaply than our own soil on which so much haad labor must be expended. The old-fash- toned cradle and fail cannot compete with CT. Neither can land which must be coGred into productiveness by costly fertilizers vie f with Natures gifts of richness to Western soil.

 Nor is the matter of cattle raising and dairy farming what it once was. Western beef takes the place of home-bred cattle. while butter and cheese comes eastward by the ton, The same soil which makes cheaper grain produces cheaper and better beef and equally good butter.

 These facts also touch us all This is 8 farming community. Whatever reduces the income of the farming class lessens the re. ceipts of the till in store and in shop. It is false to suppose that this or that commodity or branch of trade can be very greatly affect ed for any length of time alone and by itself As a rule prices and values rise and fall to- gether There is certain amount of sympa- thy between them so that they influence one another The farmer cannot say '1 am pool because my wares have fallen in price, while the goods at the store remain high" It is not so. It cannot be so The water in res ervoir rises or falls together. There is nc such thing as half going up and the remain der down, unless from unnatural, emporary causes. Hence all prices have fallen; all values have shrunk at the store as on the } farm.

 Enough, however, of causes and effects Can some one suggest remedies X.

 The glorious fourth" was celebrated with an unusual number of accidents in New York City. The police report three killed, and about dozen more or less seriously wounded. Among the killed was little girl