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^mt ajoUegE of Agriculture 
 
Cornell University 
 Library 
 
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 tine Cornell University Library. 
 
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 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924013992536 
 
Questions of the Da y Series. — No. LXII. 
 
 AMERICAN FARMS 
 
 THEIR CONDITION AND FUTURE 
 
 J. R. ELLIOTT 
 
 ' 111 fares the land, to hast'ning ills a prey, 
 Where wealth accumulates, and men decay ; 
 Princes and lords may flourish, or may fade ; 
 A breath can make them, as a breath hath made ; 
 But a bold peasantry, their country's pride, 
 When once destroyed, can never be supplied." 
 
 Oliver Goldsmith 
 
 NEW YORK & LONDON 
 
 P. PUTNAM'S SONS 
 
 %\% Knickerbocker ^ress 
 1890 
 
COPYRIGHT bV 
 
 J. R. ELLIOTT 
 i8go 
 
 Ube Iknicfietrbockec ipress, Ulew ^ot% 
 
 Electrotyped and Printed by 
 G* F. Putnam's Sons 
 
THE AUTHOR 
 
 GRATEFULLY DEDICATES THIS 
 VOLUME TO 
 
 HIS WIFE 
 
 WHOSE SYMPATHIES, SENTIMENTS, AND COUNSELS HAVE BEEN 
 
 AN INVALUABLE AID AND INCENTIVE IN THE 
 
 WORK OF ITS PREPARATION 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 FACE 
 
 Introductory . i 
 
 BOOK I. 
 Importance and Possibilities of Agricilture. 
 
 Chapter I. What is the Real Importance of Agriculture ? 9 
 
 " II. The Possibilities of Agriculture . . 22 
 
 BOOK II. 
 \ Far-Reaching Disorder upon the Interest of Hlsbandry. 
 
 Ch.-vpter I. Troubles of the Agriculturists of Ancient Times 31 
 
 II. The Difficulty Far-Reaching To-Day . . 34 
 III. The American Farmer's AVaning Economic 
 
 Power ... . . 36 
 
 IV. Farm Mortgages ... . . 45 
 A". ,The Capitalists Gaining the Land — the Typical 
 
 American Farm S3 
 
 VI. Rented Farms . . 58 
 
 VII. Abandoned Farms ... .60 
 
 BOOK III. 
 
 Agriculture's Struggle. 
 
 Chapter I. The Farmer's Cotemporaries . . . 67 
 
 " II. Competition 7S 
 
 " III. Between the Upper and Nether Slill-stones . 90 
 " IV. Protection a Deadly Enemy to the Farmers of 
 
 America ... ... 94 
 
 " V. Trusts, Combines, etc iio 
 
VI 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 BOOK IV. 
 
 Impotence of the Remedies Proposed, and the Erroneous 
 Reasons Ascribed for the Difficulties now overtaking 
 
 THE farmers of AMERICA. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Chapter I. Does Protection Protect the Farmer ? . iig 
 
 " II. The Home Markets Further Considered 122 
 
 " III. Trusts for the Farmer ..... 125 
 
 " IV. Protection as it Refers to Agriculture in 
 
 England 128 
 
 V. As to Frugality 132 
 
 " VI. Henry George's Remedy .... 134 
 
 BOOK V. 
 
 Taxation. 
 
 Chapter I. Taxation in General ..... 141 
 
 " II. The Single Tax ...... 145 
 
 " III. Indirect Taxation ...... 156 
 
 " IV. Direct Taxation ...... 163 
 
 V. The Real Strength of an Evil System of 
 
 Taxation ...... 170 
 
 BOOK VI. 
 Politics. 
 Chapter I. The Farmer Losing his Political Power . . 175 
 " II. The Farmer's Interest in Free Trade in Natural 
 
 Products only 187 
 
 " III. Free Trade may be Selfish as well as Protection; 
 or, the InefEciency of Free-Trade Move- 
 ments 206 
 
 BOOK VII. 
 
 The Physical, Mental, Social, and Moral Considerations 
 
 Involved. 
 Chapter I. The Divergence of Intellectual Development 
 from a Basis of Physical Stamina, and its 
 Consequences . . . . . . 211 
 
 II. The Farmers' Interest in the Social Outlook . 221 
 
 " III. Danger to Morals 235 
 
 The Conclusion, in Which the Remedy is Found . . 251 
 
' ' Feel for the wrongs to universal ken 
 
 Daily exposed, woe that unshrouded lies ; 
 And seek the sufferer in his darkest den, 
 
 \\Tiether conducted to the spot by sighs 
 And meanings, or he dwells (as if the wren 
 
 Taught him concealment) hidden from all eyes 
 In silence and in the awful modesties 
 
 Of sorrow ; — feel for all, as, brother Men ; 
 Rest not in hope want's icy chain to thaw 
 
 By casual boons and formal charities ; 
 Learn to be just, just through impartial law ; 
 
 Far as ye may, erect and equalize ; 
 And, what ye cannot reach by statute, draw 
 
 Each from his fountain of self-sacrifice ! " 
 
 — Word swort h. 
 
Read 50 per cent, instead of 100 per cent, on page 95, 
 line 25, and page 96, line 2. 
 
AMERICAN FARMS. 
 
 INTRODUCTORY. 
 
 It is not necessary to recount the many experiences, 
 the various mental evolutions, which have carried me on 
 to a resistless desire to solve one of the most, if not the 
 most important problem of the day — to wit ; " What is 
 the trouble on the old farms ? Why is a disease taking 
 hold of agriculture in America ? 
 
 I do not here allude to any technical question of 
 agriculture, but to a burning economic and social diffi- 
 culty which, it would appear, has been gradually creep- 
 ing upon this new world for many years. 
 
 As I attempt to note my thoughts on this matter, I 
 
 find myself among the best of farms, in . I have 
 
 been familiar with their history for many years. Their 
 changes, on the one hand, and their lack of changes, on 
 the other, have impressed me most seriously. 
 
 The grandsires of the present occupiers were the real 
 pioneers in the settlement of this district. They pros- 
 pered ; settled their sons round them in comfortable 
 homes. The fathers of the present generation also 
 prospered in a high degree ; though from this point 
 
2 AMERICAN FARMS. 
 
 of observation, it can be plainly seen that a change had 
 set in. The building of highways among their lands 
 had ceased, the farms had not been subdivided for 
 the purpose of increasing their number, though the 
 majority of these lands .are forest, or but half culti- 
 vated. 
 
 The majority of the sons — brothers to the present 
 occupiers — have drifted away into other occupations ; 
 many, it is true, to make complete failures in the race 
 for wealth ; while others have gained high positions in 
 the professions, or have become rich and influential. 
 
 On this, strip of fine agricultural land, the farm pop- 
 ulation has actually decreased in the last forty years.' 
 During the twenty years, 1849-69, the number of 
 new dwellings erected was greater by 40 per cent, than 
 during the twenty years which followed. Moreover, 
 much finer buildings were erected during the first-named 
 period than in the latter, while they were paid for quite 
 as fully. 
 
 Recently (June, 1889), I had occasion to travel by 
 highway through some sixty miles of the best agricultural 
 districts of this fine country. In this journey I passed 
 not less than six hundred farms, -and throughout the 
 whole of it I observed not a single farm-house in course 
 of construction. But I did notice on the route one very 
 fine new residence being finished for the occupancy of a 
 government official, and another under extensive repairs 
 for the purpose of lodging summer boarders from the 
 cities, and also the foundation being laid for a custom- 
 house, the cost of which is to be six times the re- 
 quirements of the port in which it is to be located. 
 
 ' In this comparison are included young men and young women 
 furthering the interests of agriculture, and farm laborers. 
 
IN TROD UCTOR Y. 3 
 
 A large number of abandoned houses, however, were 
 observed ; the farms connected being, probably, in some 
 way passed over to the care of a neighboring husband- 
 man. 
 
 With the assistance of a gentleman well informed as 
 to the financial standing of the farmers of this section 
 of the county, we gather data ; and arrive at the conclu- 
 sion that not less than 25 per cent, of the farms are in 
 the grip of the usurer. This, it would seem, is a grow- 
 ing evil. During the twelve months, ending 31st July, 
 1889, there were 30 per cent, more mortgages given, in 
 this county, than releases granted. At this rate of in- 
 crease, in less than fifteen years, 50 per cent, of the 
 farms will be under mortgage. 
 
 Dairying, once a leading industry, has decreased fully 
 50 per cent, in the last score of years. And it would 
 require an outlay of large proportions to dot these old 
 hill-side pastures over again with the milk herds of 
 twenty-five years ago. 
 
 The value of farm lands has seldom been lower dur- 
 ing the last thirty years than now ; notwithstanding the 
 fact that this is an important part of the much-famed 
 
 apple region of , which has lately come into 
 
 prominence. 
 
 The average $5,000 invested in farming (not including 
 the dwellings), at the present estimated value of farms, 
 will give to the farm proprietor about $750 per year 
 gross income, including value of amount consumed by 
 his family. Out of this, at least $250 must be paid by 
 the average farmer for labor (including board), and at 
 least another $150 for direct taxes, insurance, fertilizers, 
 and renewal of machinery, wagons, and harness, etc. : 
 leaving $350 for the farmer. A good farm laborer will 
 
4 AMERICAN FARMS. 
 
 get for the year about $250, including board at 20 cents 
 per day. ' This estimate would throw the farmer $200 
 behind the laborer in the way of income ; if he charges 
 his business with the $300 interest, which his capital is 
 entitled to. If he charges his time and that of his family 
 at the rate received by the laborer ; he will have nothing 
 for his capital. In any case, the laborer, without a cent 
 invested in the business, will be able to save as much, 
 perhaps more, at the end of each year, than the farmer, 
 with all his capital. What is the matter ? Is the laborer 
 getting too much ? Perhaps not ; not in proportion to 
 the share of the national income received by many others 
 about him. But why this anomalous condition in refer- 
 ence to agriculture ? 
 
 The average farm proprietor of this community is as 
 fine a type of man as the average in any city or country 
 in North America,^frugal, industrious, intelligent, quick 
 of wit, and ambitious beyond the average man. 
 
 The conclusion from a large number of schedules of 
 farmers' incomes, furnished by farmers themselves, 
 strengthens our suspicion that something is wrong ; that 
 in this community of fine farms, and intelligent farmers, 
 the majority of them are supporting families, paying 
 taxes, and forming the fund for the rainy day, out of an 
 average annual income of less than $350. We have for 
 some time entertained the opinion that thousands of 
 our land proprietors, on less fruitful lands, are, in this 
 fair country, forced to meet the necessities of life for 
 their families, and pay the demands made upon them by 
 society, out of less than $250 per year. We wonder if 
 to such it is not necessary that Providence deal kindly ; 
 that illness be infrequent, and of short duration ; and 
 that frugality of the strictest character, be practised ! 
 
INTROD UCTOR Y. S 
 
 But on extending the scope of our inquiries, we find 
 this is a matter for serious consideration ; not only for 
 this district, but for others, and for other parts of 
 America. We want to know if it is world-wide in its 
 character ; if it is an old problem, with a new face ; if 
 it is a normal condition ; if agriculture is not first in 
 importance to national welfare ; if it should not in this 
 era of extended division of labor give to its votaries the 
 maximum of wealth and comforts in return for faithful 
 toil : for when was there a period in which the produc- 
 tive forces were doing more toward increasing national 
 wealth ? 'When was there a time of greater boasting of 
 material progress, and its attendant results in the grand- 
 eur of civilization ? 
 
 If the condition is abnormal, where is the remedy ? 
 If there is no remedy, what of the future ? 
 
 To this end I humbly contribute the result of energies 
 of pen and brain, of head and heart, discarding all party 
 feeling, selfish prejudice, or unworth}- motives. 
 
 One of America's gifted sons asks : 
 
 " For what avail the plough or sail, , 
 Or land or life, if freedom fail ? " 
 
 We ask : What avail to bridge our oceans with float- 
 ing palaces, to span our continents with the most 
 magnificent rail trains, to stud our land with smoking 
 chimneys — the product of the industries they represent 
 reaching the grandest proportions, — to pile up national 
 wealth away beyond all precedent, if for all this, or with 
 all this, the sons of tlie pioneers who hewed down the 
 primeval forests, and brought the lands under subjection 
 to the influence and service of civilization, are to be- 
 
6 AMERICAN FARMS. 
 
 come paupers in the midst of an abundance, or to see 
 their lands pass over to the control of avaricious 
 capital ? No ! we feel impelled to search out the dan- 
 gers and the causes, and, if possible, to do something 
 to arrest them. 
 
BOOK I. 
 
 IMPORTANCE AND POSSIBILITIES OF AGRICULTURE. 
 
 ' ' Give fools their gold, and knaves their povi^er, 
 Let fortune's bubbles rise or fall, 
 Who sovi^s a field, or trains a flower. 
 Or plants a tree, is more than all. 
 
 " For he who blesses most is blest, 
 
 And God and man shall own his worth. 
 Who toils to leave, as his bequest. 
 An added beauty to the earth." 
 
 — Whittier. 
 
CHAPTER I. 
 
 WHAT IS THE REAL IMPORTANCE OF AGRICULTURE? 
 
 That the progress of America during the century 
 which now draws to a close has been of unprecedented 
 greatness, as compared with the past or present progress 
 of the other nations of the world, is a generally accepted 
 belief. The idea prevails that America is "built up." 
 This feeling finds expression every day in the utterances 
 of its people, and in most quarters. 
 
 That this development on our continent has been 
 marvellous, is not to be questioned. However, to ap- 
 proximate a correct estimate of the real worth of this 
 expansion and greatness, and of the principal factors in 
 its accomplishment, various considerations are involved. 
 Account has to be made, not only of its political stand- 
 ing among the nations, but of the power and vigor of its 
 institutions, and its conditions for the existence and 
 promotion of peace, contentment, morality, and stability 
 among its people. A country's " strength is in its men, 
 and in their unity and virtue." ' In these are the essen- 
 tials of a development which may be true and enduring, 
 a progress which may be verifiable. 
 
 To the question, to what great industry are we most 
 indebted for what may be true and abiding for good in 
 our development ? I have no hesitancy in answering : 
 
 ' John Ruskin 
 I* 9 
 
lO AMERICAN FARMS. 
 
 it is husbandry. If this be correct, this country cannot 
 afford to estimate agriculture at a low value. 
 
 And now, as men's minds are turned to a greater con- 
 sideration of the position of the rural classes than at 
 any former period in the history of America, the ques- 
 tions arise : has Ceres lost her power ? does nature 
 decide that agriculture shall not be the first of indus- 
 tries ? Not by any means. 
 
 The real importance of agriculture in framing the 
 groundwork of a true national prosperity is very great ; 
 and should not be undervalued, especially by farmers 
 themselves. Such undervaluation on the part of those 
 immediately interested has worked mischief, and must 
 continue to do so. 
 
 A review of history will remind the peruser of the 
 fact that, with the nations of antiquity, and even until a 
 very recent period, agriculture was generally considered 
 first as a medium in the creation of wealth, first in re- 
 spectability, and first in securing peace and happiness 
 to society. 
 
 Though the literature of Greece gave too little space 
 to the praise of this most worthy occupation, the glimpse 
 that may be had of the position of these matters among 
 the Grecians of the Heroic Age, tends to the conclusion, 
 that agriculture, with them, occupied a prominent place 
 in their attention and estimation. It points to the 
 probability that the tiller of the soil was, in political 
 affairs of the time, inferior to none. However little 
 there may be on which to base an absolute decision as 
 regards this, the occupation was evidently highly re- 
 spected and esteemed by those who have borne to us the 
 little knowledge to be had of the sentiments and condi- 
 tions of the time. 
 
THE REAL IMPORTANCE OF AGRICULTURE. 1 1 
 
 When Homer draws his picture on the shield which 
 he causes Vulcan to forge for Achilles, he mingles feasts, 
 dancing, and luxury, with contentions and bloodshed 
 in his city scenes ; while rural life is represented by 
 " soft fallowfields, rich glebes," " industrious plough- 
 men," " fields of deep corn," " diligent reapers and 
 delighted masters," banquets in preparation for the 
 toilers, observances of religious rites, scenes repre- 
 senting the union of industry, comfort, sanctity, peace, 
 and pleasure ; a mingling of what is truest in nature 
 and in life ; rites portraying a confiding faith in Nature's 
 God, the All Father. 
 
 That great man, Aristotle, the economist as well as 
 philosopher and logician, reckoned agriculture as the 
 chief source of national wealth. Modern political econ- 
 omy, as taught by the best writers, more correctly gives to 
 all industries a value in proportion to the utility of the 
 articles they produce ; but the prevailing thought and 
 custom of the day goes farther than this, and finds its ex- 
 ercise in practically belittling agriculture. 
 
 The ancient Romans, as all are aware, looked upon 
 this favorite occupation with a sort of " devotional 
 respect." Reproducing from Von Schlegel's " Philos- 
 ophy of History," we have the following passage, com- 
 prehensive and frequently quoted : " They (the Romans) 
 were exceedingly covetous of gain, or rather of land, for 
 it was from land, and in the production of the soil, that 
 their principal and almost only wealth consisted. They 
 were a thoroughly agricultural people, and it was only at 
 a late period that commerce, trades, and arts were intro- 
 duced among them, and even then,* they occupied but a 
 subordinate place." When at length the majority of the 
 Roman people .lost their hold upon the best of occupa- 
 
12 AMERICAN FARMS. 
 
 tions, there still remained a goodly number of the noblest 
 and truest citizens who continued to hold to the once 
 universal custom — attachment to the cultivation of the 
 soil. Many it seems shared the sentiments of Cato — 
 "a pursuit in which a wise man's life should be spent." 
 
 The ancient Egyptians also gave the greatest attention 
 to agriculture, and carried it up to a high state of perfec- 
 tion. Writers claim that their paintings and inscriptions 
 lead to the conclusion that an advanced stage of civiliza- 
 tion also accompanied this love of and pride in this 
 choicest of occupations. 
 
 With the other nations of antiquity, the Israelites were 
 also remarkable for the high proficiency to which they 
 carried agricultural pursuits. In the " Encyclopaedia 
 Britannica " will be found the following concise passage, 
 relative to the importance of agriculture with the early 
 Israelites : " The sojourn of the Israelites in Egypt trained 
 them for the more purely agricultural life that awaited 
 them on their return to take possession of Canaan. 
 Nearly the whole population were virtually husbandmen. 
 Upon their entrance into Canaan, they found the coun- 
 try occupied by a dense population possessed of walled 
 cities and innumerable villages, masters of great accumu- 
 lated wealth, and subsisting on the produce of their 
 highly cultivated soil, which abounded with vineyards 
 and olive-yards. It was so rich in grain that the invad- 
 ing army, numbering 601,730 able-bodied men, with their 
 wives and children, and a mixed multitude of camp 
 followers, found ' old corn ' in the land sufficient to main- 
 tain them from the day that they passed the Jordan." 
 
 Sully's saying, " tillage and pasture are the two 
 breasts of the state," is just as true to-day as when the 
 expression was first used ; and the ancient belief, that 
 
THE REAL IMPORTANCE OF AGRICULTURE. I3 
 
 " no other labor is at once so good for mind and body, 
 and so worthy of freemen, as agriculture," was one that 
 might well be revived at the present day. 
 
 It is something more than mere poetic fancy which 
 designates " the golden age " the days when kings, and 
 priests, and philosophers were husbandmen. The days 
 when love for the occupation, and veneration for sacred 
 customs pertaining thereto, combined in producing a 
 happy people, in making " the soil perpetual," in caus- 
 ing the land to " flow with milk and honey." They were 
 the days of national longevity, for agricultural nations 
 were the longest lived, and became the most eminently 
 accomplished, and the most wealthy in the truest sense. 
 
 Whatever may be the political economy of the states- 
 men of modern times, the most eminent teachers of this 
 science have continued to uphold the wisdom of the 
 ancients in their ascribing to agriculture supremacy 
 among national industries. 
 
 Quesney, the French political economist of the eigh- 
 teenth century, urged that " the sovereign and the nation 
 should never lose sight of the fact that the earth is the 
 unique source of riches, and that it is agriculture which 
 multiplies them. " J. B. Say, another French economist of 
 a later time, taught that " it is the acme of skill to turn the 
 powers of nature to best account, and the height of mad- 
 ness to contend against them, which is, in fact, wasting 
 part of our strength in destroying those powers she de- 
 signed for our use.'' 
 
 Professor De Laveleye, in his " Elements of Political 
 Economy," a work recently published, earnestly main- 
 tains the sovereign worth of agriculture. " At the pres- 
 ent time," says he, " attention and encouragement are 
 exclusively given to manufacturing. If it be more im- 
 
14 AMERICAN FARMS. 
 
 portant to make men healthy and happy than to inces- 
 santly increase production, it is agriculture that deserves 
 every advantage. Other industries are productive, since 
 they increase the utility of things by rendering them fit 
 for our use, but the farmer sets at work not only physical 
 and chemical, but also vital forces, and thus multiplies 
 commodities. He sows one grain of corn and reaps 
 twenty ; this year he has a couple of sheep, in a few 
 years he will have a flock. Agriculture is the first of 
 industries, because it is the foundation of all others. 
 These can only increase the number of persons they 
 employ if the farms supply them with more food." 
 
 It would be unwise to ignore the counsel of this dis- 
 tinguished authority of our own time, having the inter- 
 ests of no party or class to serve, and pursuing his 
 investigations in the centre of the great manufacturing 
 enterprises of Europe. 
 
 Three years ago, in one of our journals, the author 
 published his views on this point in the following words : 
 " If we desire our people to avoid sameness or single- 
 ness of occupation, and corresponding degradation of 
 faculties, surely we should not change farm for factory 
 life. If it be for the possession of a great variety of 
 comforts and pleasures for our use as consumers, un- 
 doubtedly that occupation which we are best prepared to 
 develop, that is indigenous to the country, that will yield 
 the largest quantity of that measure which has in its power 
 the command of all wealth ; while no occupation offers 
 a greater multiplicity of interesting subjects for study 
 and experiment than agriculture." 
 
 Deeper"and more extended study has not changed our 
 opinion of this view of the merits of the occupation of 
 husbandry, but it has impressed us even more with its 
 importance. 
 
THE REAL IMPORTANCE OF AGRICULTURE. 1 5 
 
 What opportunities it should offer for the practical 
 application of a broad education, useful and entertain- 
 ing to the intelligent being ; an education embracing the 
 physical sciences, geology, chemistry, botany, and vegeta- 
 ble physiology, as well as the historical and classical 
 branches ; the cultivation of a refinement which finds 
 expression in taste, order, and beauty, in the arrange- 
 ment of trees for fruit, protection, or ornament, as well 
 as of the field and garden plots ; an intellectual culture 
 which has quite as much a place in the bringing into 
 being of the crop of corn, potatoes, or grains, as an 
 elaborate education for the clergyman or the lawyer ; a 
 culture which should lead the possessor, above all others, 
 to most profitable admiration of the wondrous works of 
 the Great Creator ! 
 
 Turning our attention to the rural economy of the 
 British Isles, we find its history bearing most conclusive 
 testimony to the transcendent importance given in the past 
 by Britons to agriculture, in its economic, its social, and 
 its national bearings. Since the days of the Great Charter 
 love for rural life has been a national characteristic with 
 the English people, while a large proportion of English 
 statesmen have had their chief care in legislating for the 
 interests of the country. Even to-da}-, 31 per cent, of the 
 Parliament of Great Britain is, in some way, connected 
 with the landed interests. We may well claim that with 
 few other nations has the seat of economic, social, and 
 political power been longer retained in the country ; 
 notwithstanding the vexed problems which have, for 
 centuries, surrounded her land-holding system. 
 
 England's sovereigns, with few exceptions, have also 
 shared with the people this attachment for country, 
 taking the greatest interest in rural pursuits, while the 
 nobility — the temporal lords — have always prided them- 
 
l6 AMERICAN FARMS. 
 
 selves on being a rural aristocracy. Moreover, English 
 literature, in a marked degree, displays this peculiar 
 national trait, England's poets — Milton, Cowper, Spenser, 
 Gray, Shakespeare, Thomson, and Wordsworth — have 
 lauded in song the delights of rural life. 
 
 In the early years of the American Republic, the ad- 
 vancement of agriculture was the first care of most 
 American statesmen, and many of them, such as Webster, 
 Clay, and Adams, found the peaceful pursuits of the 
 farm a wholesome change from the abstracting cares of 
 statesmanship. Thomas Jefferson invented the hill-side 
 plow. The first President Harrison and Abraham Lin- 
 coln were familiar with log-cabin life in their early days. 
 
 Washington, however, who was inaugurated first Presi- 
 dent of the United States just one hundred years ago this 
 year (April 20, 1889), was, far above his compeers, the 
 great friend of American agriculture. This great man, 
 who led the armies of the Revolution, who was twice Presi- 
 dent, who " was by general consent the father of his 
 country," was more a farmer than soldier or politician. 
 In fact, husbandry was to him an occupation of the 
 highest order, and it seems to have been only the im- 
 perative demands of his country which drew him away 
 from his rural pursuits to the military or political arena. 
 
 Immediately after the war of the Revolution, Washing- 
 ton retired to his estates in Virginia. About this time, 
 in a letter to Lafayette, he remarks : " I am become a 
 private citizen on the banks of the Potomac, and under 
 the shadow of my own vine and iig-tree, free from the 
 bustle of camp, and the busy scenes of public life. I am 
 solacing myself with these tranquil enjoyments, of which 
 the soldier, who is ever in pursuit of fame ; the states- 
 
THE REAL IMPORTANCE OF AGRICULTURE. 1 7 
 
 man, whose watchful days and sleepless nights are spent 
 in devising schemes to promote the welfare of his own, 
 perhaps the ruin of other countries, as if this globe were 
 insufficient for us all ; and the courtier, who is always 
 watching the countenance of his prince, in hopes of 
 catching a gracious smile, can have little conception. I 
 have not only retired from all public enjoyments, but I 
 am retiring within myself, and shall be able to view the 
 solitary walk, and tread the paths of private life with a 
 heartfelt satisfaction. Envious of none, I am determined 
 to be pleased with all ; and this, my dear friend, being 
 the order of march, I will move gently down the stream 
 of life, until I sleep with my fathers." 
 
 During the eight years of which Washington held the 
 office of President, he took every means to impress upon 
 the minds of his government and his people, the import- 
 ance of fostering agriculture by public patronage. To 
 Sir John Sinclair, an English gentleman, he writes, under 
 date July 20, 1794: "I know of no pursuit in which 
 more real and important service can be rendered to any 
 country than by improving its agriculture." In his last 
 message to Congress he refers to agriculture and its im- 
 portance to civilization in the following terms : " It will 
 not be doubted that with reference either to individual 
 or national welfare, agriculture is of primary importance. 
 In proportion as nations advance in population and 
 other circumstances of maturity, this truth becomes more 
 apparent, and renders the cultivation of the soil more and 
 more an object of public patronage." With Washington, 
 successful agriculture meant national life, virility, and 
 power. 
 
 Beyond all this, agriculture as a promoter of peace is 
 of vast importance to the human family. For while the 
 
1 8 AMERICAN FARMS. 
 
 Strife, both of an international character and between 
 classes and communities, has, as a rule, been most in- 
 tense for the lion's share in production and through ex- 
 change, the farmer — naturally supplying his own wants 
 in a large degree, or in the centre of an industrial sys- 
 tem of self-contained independence — desires the privi- 
 leges of peace. Agriculturists, the world over, have a 
 common cause in securing the inestimable benefits of in- 
 dustrial, commercial, and international peace. Then De 
 Laveleye is not far wrong in claiming that " real civiliza- 
 tion dates from the time when man first entrusted a grain 
 of corn to the soil." 
 
 With the agriculturist, too, we may look for social 
 security ; for who can be more desirous of preserving 
 the institutions of the country from revolutionary shocks, 
 than those who have property in land with all its valued 
 associations ? 
 
 In a word, the agriculturists should be valued as the 
 temperate, the physical, the mental, the religious, the 
 moral, the social, as well as the best economic support to 
 our civilization. See Book VII. 
 
 If we study the statistics of the United States we find 
 that they furnish most conclusive evidence of the vast 
 importance of the farm industries of America. Dimin- 
 ished as they may seem to be in relative importance, the 
 capital invested in agriculture exceeds the capital em- 
 ployed in any other line of production. Agriculture 
 builds the railways of America, or they are built in 
 anticipation of the farmers paying for them ; it supports 
 directly the largest industrial class ; it settles the princi- 
 pal part of the foreign account for two hundred and thirty 
 millions of crude articles of manufacture purchased in 
 other countries — to say' nothing of the manufactured. 
 
THE REAL IMPORTANCE OF AGRICULTURE. 1 9 
 
 The same may be said of the nation's annual debt of 
 nearly a million of dollars to foreign ships for carrying 
 her imports and exports to and from the country ; also 
 of the million dollars yearly accruing to foreign capital 
 invested in the country. 
 
 In Canada, as in the United States, the farmers are 
 really at the back of the railways ; they give the largest 
 part of the employment received by her small shipping ; 
 send to foreign customers over fifty per cent, of her total 
 exports, without which it would be difficult for the inter- 
 est on the public debt to be paid, and the profits on for- 
 eign capital invested in the country to be settled.' 
 
 The importance of agriculture, as viewed by the early 
 writers of sacred history, is of too much moment to be 
 left unnoticed. They claim that it was in the garden of 
 Eden that man commenced his labors. " Out of the 
 ground made the Lord God to grow every thing that is 
 pleasant to the sight and good for food," and also "in 
 the midst of the garden " was the " tree of life," and the 
 " tree of the knowledge of good and evil." Man in the 
 image of God, perfect in all essentials, was put " into the 
 
 ' That the " Trade and Navigation Returns " do not show a very large 
 balance of trade against Canada is owing to the fact that she borrows 
 from abroad much faster thati the interest on her foreign debt is paid. 
 For, eventually, all borrowed capital must come into the country in 
 the shape of material. Consequently, it may be very far from the 
 fact to state that the production of any articles ' ' would sweep away 
 the balance of trade against her." That the change has not already 
 taken place in a marked degree is because she is still running in debt. 
 The farms must pay these debts, or the interest on these debts, through 
 exports. The policy of the country has stopped the export of manu- 
 factured goods. In 1878 she exported manufactured goods to the 
 value of $4,715,776. In 1886, only $3,306,587. (This latter amount 
 was increased slightly in i888.) 
 
20 AMERICAN FARMS. 
 
 garden of Eden, to dress it and keep it." The first trust, 
 then, given to man, was as an agriculturist, yet, in the 
 very presence of the knowledge with which gods are 
 endowed. 
 
 After the Fall, and when the injunction went forth to 
 all the human family, " In the sweat of thy face shalt 
 thou eat bread," we have the first glimpse of a primitive 
 political economy, in the division of labor between Cain, 
 the agriculturist, and Abel, the cattle-farmer. Farther 
 on, a greater division was made between the sons of 
 Lamech, — Jabal, Jubal, and Tubal-Cain. In this division 
 cattle-farming and agriculture stood first ; the second was 
 the harp and organ, which represents music, language, 
 literature, and the fine arts, whose special offices are to 
 cultivate and refine the higher faculties of man. 
 
 In political economy, agriculture should stand first, it 
 being a prime necessity. " It sets at work the organic 
 forces for the multiplication of both vegetable and animal 
 life," without which man's existence would be impossible. 
 To attain the high and noble destiny of man, the refining 
 and humanizing influences of the immaterial, as repre- 
 sented by Jabal, are also necessary, as are the class repre- 
 sented by Tubal-Cain, or those who deal with the prod- 
 ucts of agriculture and the extracts from the earth, 
 turning them into new forms of utility. 
 
 With our desire not to ignore the fact that evidences 
 are presented on every hand to show that nature is 
 requiring more and more aid to supply the increasing 
 numbers of the human family with a subsistence, calling 
 into play an ever-increasing variety of faculties for pur- 
 poses of invention and fabrication, we see no reason why 
 this cannot be realized and met by the agriculturist on 
 his own ground, and, in a sense, independent of other 
 
THE REAL IMPORTANCE OF AGRICULTURE. 21 
 
 classes. New conditions should find the farmer expand- 
 ing his higher faculties to meet them in the prosecution 
 of his own labors ; exercising not only acquisitions 
 which a liberal education should give, but also of that 
 valuable instruction preserved in tradition only — a 
 science " transmitted in fragments from father to son," 
 from neighbor to neighbor, an evolution without record. 
 
 Taking societies in the aggregate, it is from the farm- 
 er's surplus that other occupations become possible. 
 When they take more than this, they are trenching upon 
 the farmer's capital and estates, and if continued it must 
 be but a matter of time when a crisis of vast proportions 
 must be the result. It is after the necessities of life are 
 satisfied that opportunities arise for new forms of pro- 
 duction and consumption. 
 
 The enjoyment of civilized life requires the full and 
 uninterrupted development of all the great divisions of 
 labor consistent with justice and safety ; we cannot dis- 
 pense with either. But it is in rural life, surrounded by 
 nature, that the highest and grandest application of the 
 results of all progress for the development of man is 
 possible. 
 
 To sum it all up, we have science, our own observa- 
 tion, and the histories of civilizations which have come 
 and gone, all loudly protesting against a decline of 
 agriculture. 
 
CHAPTER II. 
 
 THE POSSIBILITIES OF AGRICULTURE. 
 
 Notwithstanding the fact that the old farms of the 
 world are in many instances showing signs of exhaustion, 
 and that the doctrine of Malthiis is still held by very 
 many, we are of the belief that the possibilities of agri- 
 culture are immense. Under the ideal guidance that 
 would seem possible, no branch of material development 
 suggests to the mind greater chances for grand results. 
 
 Did the reader, who may happen to be a farmer, ever 
 think of what a paradise could be made of the acres 
 around his dwelling? What subjects for study and 
 development of intellect could be the possession of his 
 family and society ! And did he ever undertake to make 
 a calculation of what might be raised on his farm by the 
 proper mixing of soils and the application of fertilizers, 
 or how exceedingly few the acres which are yielding even 
 a trifle of their possibilities ? 
 
 Mr. Edward Atkinson, in his " Distribution of Prod- 
 ucts," states that the average crop of wheat in the 
 United States and Canada would give one person in 
 every twenty of the population of the globe a barrel of 
 flour in each year, with enough to spare for seed. The 
 land capable of producing wheat is not occupied to any 
 thing like one twentieth of its extent. We can raise 
 grain enough on a small part of the territory of the 
 
THE POSSIBILITIES OF AGRICULTURE. 23 
 
 United States to feed the world. United States Consul- 
 General Way reports that " Russia, under favorable 
 conditions, could supply the world with wheat." India 
 could probably do the same, and the Argentine Republic 
 would not fall far behind. 
 
 A single State, properly fertilized, is capable of bear- 
 ing vegetables to feed the population of the whole 
 Union. And there is enough fertilizer in Boston harbor 
 to meet this requirement for very many years. There 
 are States in the West equal to the task of supplying 
 meat for the whole people of North America if the lands 
 were properly treated. The little Annapolis Valley in 
 Nova Scotia has sufficient apple-orchard area, with trees 
 in bearing and properly fertilized, to produce sufficient 
 apples to glut the markets of Great Britain and New 
 England. The » fertilizer lies in the Annapolis basin. 
 California could be made to supply this whole continent 
 with most fruits. 
 
 There can be no exhaustion of the soil if properly 
 treated. There can be no destruction of matter in the 
 consumption of the products of the farm, but there may 
 be displacement. By intelligent guidance their forces 
 may be continually augmented for the increase of both 
 animal and vegetable life. If the proper returns are 
 made to the soil, the demands of man upon it can never 
 exhaust it. 
 
 It is the order of nature that the surface of the globe 
 be more and more adapted to the support of vegetable 
 and animal life. The results of decomposition of rocks, 
 and the breathing of gases from beneath the crust of the 
 earth and from our broad oceans, are being taken up con- 
 tinually by plant life through its leaves and roots : to 
 decay and become soil, or to go into animal matter ; all 
 
24 AMERICAN- FARMS. 
 
 animal life to find its highest end in man ; and the con- 
 sumption of man to return again to the soil. But a 
 man, whose demand upon the soil once required an 
 average of eight hundred acres to supply him with 
 sufficient food, may now be better supplied with the 
 products of a single acre. Through the intelligent 
 guidance of man, what then may be the possibilities of 
 the productive capacity of land ? 
 
 That man has abused all these favorable natural con- 
 ditions is patent to those who study the subject. The 
 abuse is proved in the success which has attended, in 
 all cases, proper care to return to the land its due. 
 We have now about one and one half billions of peo- 
 ple sustained on the surface of the globe. What, in the 
 correct evolution of the productive powers of the earth, 
 is there to prevent its sustaining one hundred times as 
 many ? With these numbers so many times increased, 
 not a particle of matter would be destroyed any more 
 than now. 
 
 As the question refers to America, deduction from 
 scientific argument gives the. following result : " In Eng- 
 land the density of population is about 389 persons per 
 square mile ; but England is in some measure the work- 
 shop of the world, and supports, by her foreign trade, a 
 greater population than the soil can nourish. In France 
 the density of population is about 177 ; in Germany it 
 varies from 100 to 200. On these grounds we may 
 assume that the number of persons which a square mile 
 can properly sustain, without generating the pressure of 
 a redundant population, is 150 at the latitude of 50,° and 
 26 is the number which expresses the productiveness of 
 this parallel. Then taking, for the sake of simplicity, 35 
 as the index of the productiveness of the useful soil be- 
 
THE POSSISTLITIES OF AGRICULTURE. 25 
 
 yond 30° in America, and 85 as that of the country within 
 the parallel of 30° on each side of the equator, we have 
 about 4,000,000 square miles, each capable of supporting 
 490 persons. It follows that,.if the natural resources of 
 America were fully developed, it would afford sustenance 
 to 3,600,000,000 of inhabitants, a number nearly three 
 times as great as the entire mass of human beings now 
 existing upon the globe." ' 
 
 But, after all, the theory of Malthus, that moral re- 
 straint must be exercised for the prevention of famines, 
 only teaches that men must suffer when their supply of 
 food does not increase with the increase of their number. 
 The moral standard required is, moreover, movable, and 
 it is quite as likely to become a social condition, under 
 favorable circumstances of food supply, as when the 
 supply is low. With a true progress man's desires take 
 higher forms ; they seek expression in the exercise of his 
 better faculties ; not as a beast, he must live ; his is an 
 archetype of a grand and noble purpose. Where the na- 
 tional supply of food has dropped too low to give the peo- 
 ple a comfortable subsistence, it has always resulted from 
 a congested state, brought about through the sway of a 
 false condition in social organizations. Society is con- 
 vulsed because of some men's inability to gain the bread 
 which their associates believe their requirements demand. 
 These convulsions are becoming not far removed from 
 civil war. 
 
 And : " What is man, the animal who builds cities, and 
 excavates docks, and lays wires under the ocean, and 
 drives ships over it ? Is he not a land animal, whose 
 very body is composed of land ? What are his produc- 
 tions but the bringing forth of land materials drawn from 
 
 ' " Encyclopaedia Britannica," vol. i., p. 717. 
 
26 AMERICAN FARMS. 
 
 land, by moving, combining, separating them so as to 
 satisfy his designs ? Look in every direction ; see land 
 half used, or not used at all. Why should there be any 
 scarcity of work ? Why should men, willing to work, 
 suffer and strain for the want of the things that work 
 produces, while land, the natural source and means of all 
 production, is so abundant ? There is no reason in the 
 nature of things." ' 
 
 We may well ask what are the possibilities of agricul- 
 ture, or to what extent may the earth, when properly 
 treated, be fruitful and multiply for the satisfaction of 
 man, when the science which may be brought to her aid 
 is studied, and its teachings followed ? when mankind 
 looks upon it as it should, as the greatest of all the 
 sciences, or the science of which others are only a part ? 
 
 To this end — namely, that lands "be fruitful," and 
 man prosper — it is necessary that every agricultural 
 community be a centre of interest to society in general ; 
 that society seek the agriculturist, and not that the agri- 
 culturist seek society ; that the city seek the country, not 
 the country the city. If he (the agriculturist) prospers, 
 they will come to him. Make drafts upon him of all 
 sorts, to be consumed away from his land, and his prod- 
 ucts must go abroad in any case to satisfy this demand ; 
 he will have nothing to spend on society at home. 
 
 With a numerous and prosperous land-holding class, 
 production will be large and competition natural, and 
 monopoly in agriculture will not be thought of. Nu- 
 merous country towns are far more desirable for the 
 indirect benefit of agriculture than the growth of a few 
 though wealthy cities. Between the former and the agri- 
 culturists, there is much more likely to be a real com- 
 
 ' Henry George in the North American Review, October, 1889. 
 
THE POSSIBILITIES Op AGRICULTURE. 2/ 
 
 munity of interests than with the latter. That such 
 towns may grow and prosper, it is required that the 
 industry of agriculture be first prosperous, as a base of 
 general industrial power. Agriculture must be treated 
 as the leading industry — not of secondary importance. 
 
 It is not, then, a correct political economy which de- 
 termines that manufacturing leads husbandry, as the 
 protectionists would have it ; nor that trade should lead, 
 as many free traders desire ; but that agriculture be the 
 first, the only true condition. 
 
 Mr. Henry C. Carey was correct when he advocated the 
 theory : " That man may cease to be enslaved, and that 
 agriculture may become a science, it is indispensable 
 that there be a division of employments ; that his facul- 
 ties be stimulated to activity ; that the power of associa- 
 tion arise ; that the market for his products be brought 
 to the neighborhood of the land ; that the utility of all 
 the things yielded by it, whether in the form of food 
 or vegetable fibre, coal, ore, lime, or marl be thus in- 
 creased ; that its owner be thereby freed from the 
 enormous taxation to which he is subjected because of 
 the extending necessity for effecting changes of place ; 
 that he be freed, too, from the extraordinary waste of 
 human power, physical and mental, that always attends 
 the absence of diversity in the modes of employment ; 
 and that the powers of the land be increased by means 
 of the constant repayment to it of the manure yielded by 
 the consumption of its products." ' 
 
 ' Carey was, however, far from correct in his claim that even the 
 extreme measures which he advocated could bring about the freedom 
 and community of interests which he desired, the very opposite being 
 the evident experience of America, as she has approached them. 
 
BOOK II. 
 
 A FAR-REACHING DISORDER. 
 
 Rome, in the days of Servius, presented to view a numerous body 
 of small proprietors, cultivating the land they owned. Later, we 
 find palaces owned by Scipios and Pompeys — the land having become 
 consolidated, and the free proprietors having disappeared. Fixed 
 property declined in value, while slaves increased in number, and 
 bankers in wealth and power. — Henry C. Carey. 
 
CHAPTER I. 
 
 TROUBLES OF THE AGRICULTURISTS OF ANCIENT 
 TIMES. 
 
 In a former chapter we suggested a desire to make the 
 inquiry as to whether we have set about a solution of an 
 old difficulty. A careful survey of the histories of the 
 nations of antiquity, such as that of Israel, Greece, and 
 Rome, will convince the student that the agrarian ques- 
 tion and trouble to land properties has been an extremely 
 old subject of national, as well as individual, concern. 
 
 The husbandmen of Israel had their days of glory, 
 when the whole land of Palestine, to use the description 
 of one of England's great writers, was "a magnified copy 
 of our iinest ideal of landscape gardening, " " laughingly 
 beauteous," "sumptuously rich," "lavishly varied." 
 But we find that, though with its mountain-clad vine- 
 yards, its olive groves, its palm plantations, its orchards 
 of dates, its pomp of fruit, and with its boundless store 
 to its votaries, yielding its "thirty to one hundred-fold," 
 it finally failed to be the land of prosperous, happy homes 
 for intelligent men. 
 
 The hills of Benjamin and Judah, with once a " teem- 
 ing population" of husbandmen, are now the home of 
 wild beasts ; fertile Esdraelon and luxuriant Carmel are 
 inhabited by a few unintelligent beings ; and the high- 
 lands of Galilee, " with no appearance of life except the 
 
 31 
 
32 AMERICAN FARMS. 
 
 occasional goatherd on the hill-side, or the gathering of 
 the women at the wells." ' The old farms of Palestine 
 have been all abandoned, and the sons of the fathers and 
 founders of so much that we prize wander about in the 
 world, bereft of social or political influence anywhere. 
 
 As to the Grecian Republic, its history teems with 
 accounts of vexatious changes and disturbances on ac- 
 count of land difficulties. Plutarch, in his " Lives," 
 speaks frequently of the disorders of the state, which he 
 attributes to agrarian troubles. Lycurgus, with a power 
 that seems marvellous to us, upsets the whole of the land 
 titles, in order to give back to thousands a share in the soil. 
 
 A few hundred years later and the country is plunged 
 in civil war over these land troubles. Agis and Cleo- 
 menes meet death through an attempt to grapple with 
 these difficulties : — landed property in the hands of " the 
 few," " and the rest of the people poor and miserable." 
 Poor and miserable was evidently the correct descrip- 
 tion of the peasantry of the Grecian Republic as it 
 approached its many social and political crises. 
 
 A hint only seems necessary to remind the intelligent 
 reader that most disastrous misfortunes overtook the 
 rural citizens of the Roman Republic and Empire, before 
 their overthrow. Roman gods and goddesses were un- 
 equal to the task of saving the small landed proprietors 
 from destruction ; for it amounted to that. 
 
 The land-holders must have been very numerous at 
 one time, especially at the period when seven acres con- 
 stituted the limit of the extent of the individual estate. 
 The vast majority of these, with their posterity, not 
 only had their grievous difficulties to contend against, 
 but were finally dispossessed of their properties. " Ex- 
 
 ' Dr. Cunningham Geikie. 
 
TROUBLES OF ANCIENT TIMES. 33 
 
 tensive parks," controlled by the favored few, took the 
 place of the once very numerous peasantry. The free 
 Roman citizen disappeared from the old farms, and the 
 cultivation of the soil was given over to the " slave 
 gangs." Tiberius Gracchus, who undertook to grapple 
 with the trouble, said of his unfortunate fellow-citizens : 
 " They are called ' masters of the world,' and have not 
 a foot of ground in their possession ; without homes, 
 without any fixed abode, they wander from place to 
 place with their wives and children." 
 
 It is not required to pursue this farther, to show that 
 we have not entered upon the solution of an altogether 
 new problem, or a problem which has not a counterpart 
 in some important particulars, at least, with the fallen 
 civilizations. 
 
 2* 
 
CHAPTER II. 
 
 THE DIFFICULTY FAR-REACHING TO-DAY. 
 
 Where is the country at the present time which has 
 not to face serious questions in relation to agriculture ? 
 Taking a hasty glance at the chief countries of Europe, 
 such as Italy, France, Germany, Belgium, and Great 
 Britain, we find not one of them whose thinking men 
 do not see in this matter (as it concerns themselves) 
 cause for reflection. 
 
 Rural Italy has of late years been experiencing a 
 crisis in agriculture. The condition became so serious 
 that a government commission was set at work about ten 
 years ago to investigate the matter. Their labors cov- 
 ered a term of seven years, and the final report appeared 
 in 1885. The substance of the report was to the effect 
 that the peasantry of Italy are " poor and miserable, 
 leading a life of wretched existence, to which emigration 
 alone offers a recourse " ; that " nearly 150,000 Italians 
 quit the country every year " ; that " half the children, 
 die, under seven years, in the Marches " ; that " families 
 live together sometimes to the number of forty " ; that 
 " in the mountain districts the whole family live in one 
 smoky room, with their pigs, their goats, and their 
 chickens." This is certainly a gloomy picture of the 
 condition of modern rural Italy, the garden of Europe. 
 
 Like Italy, France has made these matters a subject 
 
 34 
 
THE DIFFICULTY FAR-REACHING TO-DAY. 35 
 
 of parliamentary inquiry,'and it is found that the agri- 
 cultural class are in a very unhappy condition. The 
 Institute Natural of Paris reported some time ago, that 
 in parts of France peasants are living like beasts. Of 
 eight millions of land proprietors, three millions are now 
 looked upon as subjects of charity. 
 
 As to Germany, one government commission after 
 another has been issued to look into the state of agricul- 
 tural troubles. They find that in many parts of the 
 empire, farm mortgages are eating up the peasants' little 
 properties, that the condition is any thing but satisfac- 
 tory ; and many schemes are proposed to alleviate their 
 distresses. 
 
 These matters in Belgium have also become a subject 
 of parliamentary notice. In every province in the land 
 a government representative has been stationed to ren- 
 der the farmers assistance, but still the trouble goes on. 
 In Russia, not only are the peasants' properties in very 
 many cases loaded with debt, but the owners them- 
 selves actually mortgaged for many years in advance. 
 As to Great Britain, her land troubles are a subject of 
 every-day conversation. We all know that efforts tow- 
 ard their solution consume a very large portion of the 
 time of the British statesman. This glance over Europe 
 will suffice to remind us that we are dealing with a diffi- 
 culty of large proportions. 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 
 THE AMERICAN FARMER'S WANING ECONOMIC 
 POWER. 
 
 Most students of social science will admit that in all 
 stages in the growth of nations and of society, the indi- 
 viduals or the classes which have had the largest share 
 in the general wealth have possessed immense advan- 
 tages over those less abundantly supplied. Such pos- 
 sessions have truly given them the " power of position " to 
 command men as well as things. The early farmers of 
 America could well boast of being the wealth producers, 
 as well as the wealth controllers of the Western world ; 
 a power of position which could reasonably defy oppres- 
 sion from the hands of others. 
 
 I am aware that the aggregate apparent wealth of the 
 agricultural and pastoral classes has increased in the 
 last fifty years, and that the average farmer may be in a 
 sense better conditioned than he was half a century ago ; 
 but so is the ordinary citizen, in a sense, better off than 
 the foremost citizen of primitive times. Even the average 
 pauper of to-day is, in a sense, better circumstanced, than 
 the most successful of the earliest pioneers in material 
 progress. As much could be said, perhaps, for the 
 slave of the Roman Empire in her palmy days, as com- 
 pared with the free savage of an earlier period. At any 
 stage of development, however, the successful ones, or 
 
 36 
 
AMERICAN FARMER'S ECONOMIC POWER. 37 
 
 those who have made the greatest progress in gathering 
 wealth, have secured the power of position over their 
 contemporaries — the power to dictate terms. This has 
 been a rule, with few if any exceptions, all the way up. 
 
 The typical American farmer once held such control 
 of the national purse strings ; even in the year 1850, the 
 farmers of the United States could boast of possessing 
 60 per cent, of the capital power of the Union. It is 
 not easy to give a sufficiently high estimate to this rela- 
 tive power, secured and maintained as it was by indi- 
 vidual effort. It undoubtedly secured for its possessors 
 a commanding influence in political and social affairs, 
 while fostering a most desirable spirit of independence. 
 
 This power, however, which was really on the wane in 
 1850, though 60 per cent, of the total, sank to 53 per 
 cent, in i860. This decline of relative wealth has con- 
 tinued until the present day. In 1880, it had gone down 
 to 40 per cent, and it is probably not more than 35 per 
 cent, to-day. 
 
 Further than this, I say, the farmer's power is declin- 
 ing, absolutely as well as relatively. In i860 there were 
 2,044,077 farms in the United States ; in 1880, 4,008,907. 
 In i860 the total value of farm property was $7,980,493,- 
 063, or an average of $3,904 per farm ; in 1880 the value 
 of the total value was $12,104,001, or an average of 
 $3,019 per farm. Up to i860 the farmers held their 
 ground, or rather increased the value of their possessions, 
 but from that date to 1880 the shrinkage has been 
 equivalent to $885 per farm, and we have every reason 
 for supposing that this decline is still going on. 
 
 In 1870 the property of the farmers of the six New 
 England States was valued at $707,942,439 ; in 1880 it 
 had fallen to $671,846,058. Is this not a serious change 
 
38 AMERICAN FARMS. 
 
 — a change that demands searching inquiry ? Have we 
 not in it a question quite equal to the vexed question 
 between labor and capital, the unequal distribution of 
 land ? Or, are they not parts of one great question ? 
 
 But, let us review the opinions held thirty years ago, 
 as to the relative importance of agriculture in some of 
 the New England States. Our eye rests upon a volume 
 of the New England Farmer for the year 1854, and from 
 an editorial we extract the following emphatic passage : 
 
 "In the year 1850, the improved land of the State 
 (Massachusetts) amounted to 2,133,436 acres, and the 
 cash value of the farms was $109,076,347 ; the imple- 
 ments and machinery were worth $3,209,584 ; the value 
 of the live-stock was $9,649,710 ; and the value of rye 
 and Indian corn of that year was $2,857,732 ; to say 
 nothing of hay, fruit, root crops, which would be as 
 much more. These sums find the farmer investing 
 capital and producing crops in a single year to the 
 amount of one hundred and twenty-seven millions six 
 hundred and fifty-one thousand one hundred and five 
 dollars. 
 
 " The other principal industrial pursuits gave, for the 
 same period, in the cotton and woollen manufacture, in 
 pig-iron, castings, wrought-iron, malt and spirituous 
 liquors, and tanneries, an aggregate of eighty millions 
 three hundred thousand nine hundred and fifty -four dollars, 
 leaving a balance of forty-seven millions three hundred 
 and fifty-one dollars in favor of the industry of farming." 
 
 In this State, the value of the productions of Indian 
 corn, wheat, and rye has fallen from $2,750,000 in 1854 
 to $1,750,000 in 1887. The value of live-stock has risen 
 from $9,649,7:0 in 1850 to only $12,957,004, or an 
 average yearly increase of $89,386 : not quite one per 
 cent, per year. 
 
AMERICAN FARMER'S ECONOMIC POWER. 39 
 
 In 1865 the pounds of beef slaughtered were 70,000,- 
 000 ; in 1885, only 10,000,000. The potato crop in 1845 
 amounted to 4,767,000 bushels ; in 1885 it was reduced 
 to 3,584,000 bushels. 
 
 In 1845 the production of wool reached the fine figure 
 of 1,015,000 pounds ; in 1885 the insignificant amount of 
 255,000 pounds. 
 
 Most startling, however, is the fact that, while the 
 total value of property rose from $573,343,286 in 1850 
 to $2,795,000,000 in 1880, the value of farm property 
 only rose from $121,935,641 in 1850 to $164,288,956 in 
 1880. That is to say, while the valuation of the property 
 of the people of the whole State increased by 171 per 
 cent, in thirty years, the per capita valuation of the 
 farmers' property increased by only 30 per cent. ; the 
 value of farm land declining $5,929,142 in the ten years 
 
 i87S-'85. 
 
 As in Massachusetts, the production of grain in New 
 Hampshire has declined. In 1853 it amounted, in wheat, 
 Indian corn, rye, buckwheat, and oats, to 2,988,982 
 bushels ; but in 1880, to only 2,665,912 bushels. 
 
 In 1853 the production of potatoes was 4,304,916 
 bushels, in 1880, 3,358,828 ; of hay, 598,854 tons in 
 1853, in 1880, 583,665 tons ; of cheese, 3,196,663 pounds 
 in 1853, in 1880, 807,076 pounds. 
 
 The value of live-stock for this State was $8,871,901 
 in 1853, and only $9,812,064 in 1880 — an increase of only 
 a fraction over 10 per cent, in twenty-seven years. The 
 production of fruit has no doubt much increased, but 
 with this exception and the slight increase in live-stock 
 and that of butter, the falling off has been alarmingly 
 large in every line. 
 
 ' This decline was from $116,629,849 to $110,700,707. 
 
40 AMERICAN FARMS. 
 
 It is admitted now, on all sides, that farm industry is 
 not progressing in New England ; rather, fast losing 
 ground. We have found, however, that not long since 
 the foremost public men of New England thought other- 
 wise. Not only were they satisfied with the progress of 
 their time, but were sanguine believers in a prosperous 
 future for the farmers of their several States. 
 
 The following, a portion of Governor Fairbanks' ad- 
 dress to the General Assembly of Vfermont, in session 
 December, i860, takes the same view : 
 
 " From an abstract of the seventh United States cen- 
 sus, it appears that in 1850 there were in this State 
 2,600,409 acres of improved land, — a quantity exceeding 
 that of any other New England State ; and that our 
 agricultural products of that year exceeded in quantity 
 those of any of the same States in the articles of live- 
 stock, butter, cheese, wool, wheat, oats, potatoes, hay 
 and a variety of other crops. 
 
 " The value of live-stock, as shown by that census, was 
 $12,643,228, and the aggregate of farm productions for 
 that year shows a valuation, including live-stock, of 
 about $25,000,000, being nearly equal to $80 for each in- 
 dividual of our population. 
 
 " The well-known industry of our citizens engaged in 
 agricultural pursuits and the capabilities of our soil, have 
 been made available for increasing the amount of these 
 products under the stimulus of augmented prices conse- 
 quent upon the opening of railway communication with 
 the markets. It may therefore be assumed that this 
 department of industry has not only maintained its 
 relative importance, but that it has during the intervening 
 years, since the above data, experienced a constant and 
 healthful growth and increase. Still it is conceived 
 
AMERICAN FARMER'S ECONOMIC POWER. 4I 
 
 that it is capable of far greater development and a much 
 more abundant increase. 
 
 "Vermont is essentially an agricultural state. The 
 great body of its citizens are engaged in agricultural 
 pursuits. The salubriousness of its soil and the variety 
 of its physical structure adapt it to the cultivation of the 
 most essential and profitable crops and to the successful 
 prosecution of sheep and cattle husbandry. Other im- 
 portant interests exist, and are successfully prosecuted ; 
 but it is to this essentially that we are to look for the most 
 marked and healthy growth of the state in wealth and 
 prosperity." 
 
 The following is an extract from the message of Gov- 
 ernor Martin to the legislature of New Hampshire in 
 1853 : "Agriculture is our leading interest, and, although 
 our state is more mountainous than any of our neigh- 
 boring states, yet we can justly boast of large quantities 
 of luxuriant intervale ; our uplands are productive, and 
 afford a pasturage unrivalled in excellence. Nowhere 
 can the necessaries, conveniences, and comforts of life be 
 found combined in greater abundance. Our lands, im- 
 proved and under tillage, number 2,251,448 acres ; value 
 of farms, $55,245,997 ; farming implements and ma- 
 chinery, $2,314,125 ; live-stock, $8,871,901 ; orchard 
 products, $248,563 ; domestic manufactures, $393,455. 
 We raise an average crop of 185,658 bushels of wheat, 
 183,117 bushels of rye, 1,573,970 bushels of Indian corn, 
 973,381 bushels of oats, 70,856 bushels of buckwheat, 
 4,304,919 bushels of potatoes, and we produced 1,108,- 
 476 pounds of wool, 6,977 pounds of butter, 3,196,663 
 pounds of cheese, 1,294,863 pounds of maple sugar, 
 598,854 tons of hay. Let the young farmers of this 
 state estimate the foregoing products of the farm and 
 
42 AMERICAN FARMS. 
 
 dairy at fair average prices, and see what a fine aggregate 
 of values they will have as the result, bearing in mind 
 the while, that he who most increases the productiveness 
 of the earth is the greatest benefactor of his race." He 
 followed this by claiming that, although all classes in 
 the State were thriving and prosperous, the remark was 
 especially applicable to the department of agriculture. 
 
 It is important for us to note that agriculture had the 
 lead in this portion of America at that time, and that the 
 first government functionaries thought it destined to 
 experience a still higher measure of success in the future. 
 They saw nothing for the farmers to fear, but a great 
 deal to give them courage. 
 
 The decadence of the agricultural interests of New 
 Hampshire and Vermont is now the object of official in- 
 vestigation. Mr. B. Valentine, Commissioner of Agri- 
 culture for Vermont, finds that good areas of tillable land 
 can be bought in his State at prices approximating those 
 of Western lands. Two-hundred-acre farms, with "fair 
 buildings," good orchards, and plenty of timber, are 
 being sold for less than $i,ooo. In some counties large 
 tracts of land, of fair quality, can be bought for three or 
 four dollars per acre. Town-Clerk Fuller, of Vershire, 
 Vermont, says : " We have many abandoned farms in 
 different parts of our towns, with good buildings on them, 
 that could be bought for five dollars of less per acre. 
 All this land was once occupied by thrifty and prosperous 
 farmers." 
 
 In 45 agricultural towns in Connecticut the decrease 
 of wealth in the eleven years 1865-76 amounted to 
 $i>893, 172 ; between 1876 and 1886 the decrease ran up 
 to $2,741,520. Out of 603 farmers interviewed, 378 
 show a yearly loss. As we travel away from New Eng- 
 
AMERICAN FARMER'S ECONOMIC POWER. 43 
 
 land to more western lands, we meet the same cry — the 
 decline of agriculture. The report on the financial 
 affairs of the farmers of Nebraska (1887-88) shows that 
 of 215 farmers, over 50 per cent, stated that they were 
 losing money. 
 
 Under the head of " Mortgaged Farms " we will deal 
 further with the relative condition of the Western farmer. 
 But, while touching the subject, we may say that the 
 relative capital power of the Western farmer is waning, 
 as is that of the Eastern, though not so apparent in its 
 rapidity. 
 
 From an article on " Commercial Union," to be found 
 in Mr. Goldwin Smith's " Hand-Book of Reciprocity," 
 written by Mr. Thomas Shaw, Secretary of the Perma- 
 nent Central Farmer's Institute, Hamilton, Ontario, we 
 extract the following : " In 1882 the farmers of Ontario 
 were worth $882,624,610, in 1886 they were worth $989,- 
 497,911. The advance of these four years has been 
 $106,873,301, or an advance on the average capital in- 
 vested for the four years, $948,302,805, or .028 per cent. 
 The manufacturers of the Dominion made an advance 
 of 42 per cent, less the running expenses, exclusive of 
 wages, in the years of 1880 and 1881." 
 
 The Bulletin from the Bureau of Industries for Ontario 
 published in August, 1889, reports the value of farm 
 property to have increased during the past year from 
 $981,368,094 to $982,210,664, an increase of about one 
 tenth per cent. ; probably not more than the increase in 
 the amount of farm mortgages. 
 
 The Worthy Master of the Dominion Grange, in an ad- 
 dress at Toronto, in the autumn of 1886, contended that 
 the wealthy amongst the farmers were comparatively 
 few, and that " as matters exist the farmer can never 
 
44 AMERICAN FARMS. 
 
 cope with the overwhelming odds that are pitted against 
 him." 
 
 Said the St. John Sun (Conservative) in its editorial of 
 July 24, 1888 : " In the Eastern Provinces of Canada 
 the natural hay land holds its own in vailue ; but arable 
 land, except in particular localities, is not increasing in 
 price ; while in districts remote from railway connection 
 there is an undoubted decline in values. In those parts 
 of Ontario where the farmers have given their attention 
 largely to raising grain for export, agricultural lands are 
 said not to be increasing in price." This admission is 
 important, as it comes from a source not' likely to make 
 it if there were not the best of grounds for such con- 
 clusions. 
 
 Thus we find in various ways the power of position is 
 passing from the agriculturists of America. 
 
CHAPTER IV. 
 
 FARM MORTGAGES. 
 
 Probably no better proof of the loss of the farmer's 
 relative capital power is required than in his growing de- 
 pendence for his capital on the successful men of other 
 occupations. And it certainly is an unquestionable in- 
 dication of coming disaster, if this demand for aid by the 
 farmer be growing faster than the increase in the value 
 of his possessions. Fifty years ago farm mortgages were 
 rare in America ; to-day they are the rule in many locali- 
 ties ; and everywhere they threaten to defy the farmer's 
 eiTorts to contend with the load they create. 
 
 It is claimed of New England " that at least 33-^ per 
 cent, of the farms are mortgaged to the capitalists. Few 
 undertake to deny this startling declaration. In fact, it 
 is generally admitted. But, while some see in this grow- 
 ing evil in the New England farmer's iinancial condition, 
 the result of a malady which extends its destructive 
 influence over the whole continent, others find a cause 
 wholly in the unequal competition of the Western rival. 
 The grounds for the latter contention, though in a certain 
 sense of great importance, are not enough, since serious 
 troubles are overtaking the Western competitor. 
 
 ' In Connecticut, out of 603 farms recently visited by an investiga- 
 tion, 241, or 34 per cent., valued at |i, 008, 350, were mortgaged to the 
 extent of $451,109. 
 
 45 
 
46 AMERICAN FARMS. 
 
 The New York State Agent reported about eighteen 
 months ago that " there are large numbers of farms that 
 were purchased ten years ago and mortgaged, which 
 would not now sell for more than the face of the mort- 
 gages, owing to the depreciation of the farm lands, 
 which on an average is 33 per cent, in ten years. 
 Probably one third of the farms in the State would 
 not sell for more than the cost of the buildings and 
 other improvements, owing to this shrinkage. . . . 
 Thirty per cent, of the farms in the State are mortgaged, 
 ranging from 2 per cent, of their value to 100 per cent. ; 
 average, 66f per cent, of estimated value. These securi- 
 ties are held by retired or more successful farmers, 
 merchants, savings-banks, and insurance companies." 
 
 While the State agent claimed that " still a large pro- 
 portion of the farmers of New York are prosperous, 
 one cannot but be startled by a report from an official 
 source, that the farm lands of the leading State in the 
 Union — a State having advantages superior to most 
 others — had declined in value 33 per cent, in ten years, 
 and that one third of the farms in the State would not 
 sell for more than the cost of the buildings and other 
 improvements, owing tt) the shrinkage." The State of 
 New York contains within its limits some of the largest 
 centres of production and consumption in America, and 
 it also contains as good land as is to be found anywhere. 
 Then why should not the tillers of this soil prosper ? 
 
 The State of Ohio has, according to official reports, 
 an assessed valuation of real estate amounting to 
 $1,220,262,525, on which are 291,000 mortgages, forming 
 a total indebtedness of $330,999,205, much of which is, 
 however, upon other than farm lands. 
 
 Mr. Heath, Commissioner of Labor Statistics of 
 Michigan, has recently reported on the mortgage in- 
 
FARM MORTGAGES. 47 
 
 debtedness of the farmers of his State. He stated that 
 he has reports from 90,803 farms, or 58 per cent, of all 
 the farms in the State. The assessed valuation of all 
 farms reported is $194,854,663, upon which there is a 
 mortgage indebtedness of $37,456,272, or a little more 
 than 19 per cent, of the total assessed valuation, and 
 nearly 47 per cent, on that of the farms mortgaged. 
 The assessed valuation of the farms in the State is 
 $335,378,025, upon which the estimated mortgage in- 
 debtedness is $64,392,580, with an annual interest 
 charge of $4,636,265 on farms alone. 
 
 The opinion of the Labor Commissioner of Michigan, 
 that the mortgages upon the farms of that State operate 
 " as a mammoth sponge " upon the labor of the owners, 
 is the growing feeling of the majority of farmers all 
 over America — the older parts at least. The farms of 
 Michigan surround the great iron industries of the West. 
 The State now contains large centres of population, and 
 its lands are fertile and productive, and yet the farmers 
 are evidently on the downward track. 
 
 Says a Southern journal : " Think of it ! In as pros- 
 perous a State as Michigan 47 per cent., or nearly half, 
 of the farms are mortgaged. In Georgia, if one would 
 take the trouble to examine the clerks' offices in the 
 different counties, a condition of affairs equally bad, 
 perhaps worse, would be brought to light." 
 
 The Bureau of Labor Statistics for the State of Illinois 
 has issued reports which show that the farm lands of the 
 State have mortgages upon them to the amount of $123,- 
 733,098, not including Cook County. 
 
 As to Nebraska, official reports do not indicate a 
 happy condition of afifairs in that State in reference to 
 this matfer. The reports of 1887-88 deal with 215 
 farmers scattered all over the State. An analysis of 
 
48 AMERICAN FARMS. 
 
 these reports shows that, of the 215 farms, 113 are 
 mortgaged. 
 
 Seventy-five per cent, of farms of Dakota are mort- 
 gaged for an aggregate amount of $50,000,000.' 
 
 The New York Times of December 27, 1886, con- 
 tained a long article from Mr. Frank Wilkeson on the 
 condition of the farmers of Kansas. He said : " It is a 
 financial impossibility in this era of agricultural com- 
 petitive warfare for a farmer of average intelligence and 
 skill who tills a farm of 100 acres of land, except corn 
 land, to lift a mortgage of say $1,000, with money earned 
 by growing staple crops. ... I can safely say that 
 nine tenths of all the uplands lying west of the ninety- 
 seventh meridian are really small grain lands, which are 
 
 ' According to the report of the Commissioner of Labor Statistics 
 for Illinois, ' ' the mortgage indebtedness of farmers for borrowed 
 money has increased twenty-three per cent, since 1880 in this State, 
 twice the increase in the value of farm lands." Twenty-five counties 
 are reported to have increased their value of farm laiids, twenty-three 
 have decreased, and in sixteen the values have remained the same. 
 
 " It is now twenty years at least that farming has been going rapidly 
 downward. Farms bought in the war era have been selling almost 
 everywhere in the East for one half to one third of their cost. Farms 
 in New England, and some in the Middle States, are frequently sold 
 for less than the buildings cost which are upon them. This is really 
 no exaggeration. Sales of this sort, and where the depreciation in 
 value has wiped out the owner's equity in them, have been for years a 
 inatter of notorious knowledge in almost every Eastern community. 
 Within a year, in a healthy and fertile county not sixty miles from 
 New York, a farm having on it two mortgages — a first mortgage of 
 |3,ooo and a second mortgage of $2,000 — was sold under foreclosure 
 for the sum represented by the first mortgage only. The holder of 
 the second one did not think it worth while to be present, or to have 
 a representative present at the sale, to bid the single dollar which 
 would have saved, or made a show of saving, his investment." 
 
 Joel Benton, in Popular Science Monthly, Nrfv., 1889. 
 
49 
 
 utterly unfit to 'i)*6^|fl}%(VqMBA,\'%^^pting in excessively 
 wet seasons." 
 
 The picture given of life on Saturday in a Kansas 
 town is certainly a startling one : "It matters not how 
 dull the town has been during the week, on Saturday 
 the streets are crowded with people ; on that day chat- 
 tels are sold to satisfy the overdue mortgages. At pres- 
 ent these sales are numerous in the West, outside of the 
 corn belt, and a very large portion of these do not real- 
 ize sufficient to pay the mortgages. Teams, wagons, or 
 horned stock, which six months ago were considered 
 ample security for a loan of from f loo to $150, fre- 
 quently fetch at public auction 25 per cent, less than the 
 price of the mortgage." 
 
 So important has the question of increased mortgage 
 indebtedness become, that the Cleveland Administration 
 thought itself justified in appropriating $250,000 for col- 
 lecting the statistics relating thereto. 
 
 " Mr. Henry M. McDonald, President of the Traders' 
 Bank, Pierre, Dakota, estimates that the volume of 
 Western-mortgage business, confined chiefly to Kansas, 
 Nebraska, Minnesota, and Dakota, has reached the sum of 
 $150,000,000 yearly. It may exceed his figures. That 
 it is of great magnitude is evident from the fact that in all 
 Eastern cities (and in most of the towns and villages) 
 are located numbers of agents who make a living from 
 the commissions paid them for securing loans. Boston 
 numbers more than fifty agencies of farm-mortgage com- 
 panies. It is computed that Philadelphia alone nego- 
 tiates yearly more than $15,000,000 on Western loans. 
 Kansas and Nebraska have 134 incorporated mortgage 
 companies. The companies organized under the laws 
 of other States, but operating in these two States, in- 
 
 3 
 
50 AMERICAN FARMS. 
 
 .crease the number at least 200. In this reckoning no 
 account is taken of firms and individuals, although a 
 large amount of money is directly invested by lenders of 
 this class." ' 
 
 One feature of importance to be observed in this 
 mortgage business, is the fact that the chief part of the 
 power to put in bonds the lands of America comes not 
 from the country, but from the city ; while the country 
 is gaining no equivalent power over city interests of 
 any kind. 
 
 As to the oppressive nature of the Western farm mort- 
 gages the Chicago Times says : " The syndicates that 
 loan money at from one to three per cent, per month are 
 mainly made up of Scotch, English, and New England 
 capitalists, who have their agents throughout the South 
 and West. These mortgages are falling due, and soon 
 an immense number of Southern and Western farms 
 will be in the hands of foreign mortgageors. . . The 
 territories are covered with mortgages on new farms 
 not yet patented. In some of them the law has permit- 
 ted outrageous interest, so that the farm-mortgage busi- 
 ness has grown into immense proportions. In many 
 districts half of the settlers borrow money at high 
 interest to pay the small price required by the govern- 
 ment in proving up. This is leading to widespread dis- 
 aster. The object of the pre-emption law is perverted. 
 Eastern and foreign capitalists get the land with such 
 improvements as the settler has put upon it. The settler 
 loses all by reason of the exorbitant interest he is com- 
 pelled to pay." 
 
 There are those who would fain establish the idea that 
 these growing financial embarrassments upon the farms of 
 
 ' W. F. Mappin in Political Science Quarterly, September, 1889. 
 
FARM MORTGAGES. gl 
 
 America are " an evidence of thrift rather than the con- 
 trary." Borrowed capital has, no doubt, enabled many 
 Western farmers to push their enterprises with a success 
 which they, probably, would not have attained without it. 
 But the payment of the interest on Western farms, with 
 wheat at 80 cents per bushel, is quite a different matter, 
 as compared with the time when this cereal commanded 
 a price 30 per cent, higher. It was a different matter 
 when the lands yielded an average of 30 bushels of corn 
 to the acre, as compared with 20 bushels now — when 
 heavy outlays for fertilizers are required to secure a 
 crop. 
 
 Farm mortgage is a comparatively new disease with 
 the agriculturists of America. Fifty years ago, the farmer 
 who was obliged to put a mortgage on his farm was con- 
 sidered next to insolvent, and its clearance was thought 
 highly improbable. They are so numerous now that 
 their increase is hardly noticed by the rural communities. 
 But I believe that at the present day not more than 50 
 per cent, of mortgaged farms are released, except by 
 change of ownership. 
 
 Before us is the address of Mr. R. Wilkie, the Worthy 
 Master of the Dominion Grange Patrons of Husbandry, 
 delivered at a session of the Order in Toronto, Novem- 
 ber, 1886. From this high authority we learn that a 
 large proportion of the lands of the Dominion are, like 
 the United States farms, becoming hopelessly incum- 
 bered. He said : " Doubtless a very large amount of 
 capital is invested in farming ; but much of it belongs 
 to capitalists, and is only loaned on the land — a very 
 large proportion of which is under mortgage much 
 greater than most people suppose, and much of it is 
 hopelessly sunk . . . The only hope that still re- 
 
52 AMES/CAN PARMS. 
 
 mains in many cases is that the land may be sold for 
 something more than the amount of encumbrance. If 
 any one doubts this, let him turn to the number of ad- 
 vertisements of farms for sale. The newspapers are full 
 of them. And hundreds of land agents throughout the 
 country are furnishing long lists free to any expectant 
 purchaser. The owners of these lands are not men who 
 are retiring on their fortunes, nor are they men who de- 
 sire to engage in other pursuits. A large proportion of 
 them are men who are selling to save the little which 
 still remains, there being no longer any hope of saving 
 the farm.'' 
 
 From what can be gathered from other sources, the 
 picture drawn by the Worthy Master is not overdrawn as 
 regards Ontario. The lowest estimate puts the mortgage 
 indebtedness upon the farms of this province at $58,- 
 000,000. The Montreal journal of Commerce recently 
 stated that, " as the possibility of the mortgages ever 
 being paid off is so remote, the interest may fairly be 
 looked upon as a fixed annual charge." 
 
 We may well ask : " Who are to own the farms of 
 America ? " 
 
CHAPTER V. 
 
 THE CAPITALISTS GAINING THE LAND— THE TYPICAL 
 AMERICAN FARM. 
 
 The definition of an American farm, as given by Web- 
 ster, is : " A portion or tract of land consisting usually 
 of grass land, meadow, pasture, tillage, and woodland, 
 cultivated by one man, and usually owned by him in 
 fee." His definition of a farm in Great Britain is as fol- 
 lows : " A tract of land leased on rent reserved ; ground 
 let to a tenant on condition of his paying a certain sum, 
 annually or otherwise, for the use of it." 
 
 As a rule, the typical American farm was, and is, 
 worked by the owner and his family, with sometimes the 
 assistance of hired help for a large portion of the year, 
 but frequently without any help beyond the family, and 
 an extra gang for the haying season. He was and is 
 virtually landlord, capitalist, and laborer. His lands do 
 not support an idle aristocracy ; he was and is inde- 
 pendent of the usurer, and he depends in the main upon 
 his own industry, the sweat of his own brow, for the 
 part that man must do to fill his granaries, or for the 
 power to satisfy the wants of himself and family. 
 
 First, then, the typical American farmer, with his grass,- 
 land, meadow, pasture, tillage, and woodland, chiefly 
 depending for its care and cultivation upon his own 
 exertions, was and is what is now called a small farmer. 
 
 53 
 
54 AMERICAN FARMS. 
 
 Second, the typical American farmer was and is, usually, 
 an owner. 
 
 In order to show the present tendencies towards large 
 estates, we will divide the large from the small at loo 
 acres, and compare those above and below at different 
 periods, say i860 with 1880. In the year i860, of the 
 2,044,077 land-holdings in the United States, 1,387,614, 
 or 67 per cent, were of the classes 100 acres and under. 
 In Canada, the census of 1881 found the lands in hold- 
 ings of 100 acres and under, to the extent of 71 percent, 
 of the total. From this we draw the conclusion that 
 farms of 100 acres and less have been the rule. Such 
 have been the typical farms. 
 
 Such farmers providing their own capital, both for the 
 ownership of their lands and the prosecution of their 
 business, and depending chiefly upon their own labors, 
 needed no extensive areas. Indeed large areas would be 
 an intolerable encumbrance to the owners, as the fencing 
 of even a 200-acre farm would be a severe tax on their 
 time. It is true that in many cases, such as those which 
 formed the estates of Virginia, the original grants were 
 large blocks of land, but in those early days when such 
 grants were made, they were not taken for speculative 
 purposes, as now, or for carrying on a wholesale com- 
 petition in agriculture. And when a community did 
 really get down to the cultivation of the soil, or to gen- 
 eral farming, it was on small plots or town lots that the 
 farmers' labors were prosecuted, and each farmer was a 
 proprietor. 
 
 We have stated already that in i860, 67 per cent, of 
 the land-holdings were of the classes occupying 100 
 acres and under. The census of 1880, however, showed 
 that a rapid change had been made during the decade ■ 
 
THE TYPICAL AMERICAN FARM. 55 
 
 in reversing this condition ; of 4,008,907 holdings, 
 only 2,208,374 were of the classes named ; of the classes 
 between ten and one hundred acres there were 2,069,133, 
 or 51 per cent, while those over 100 acres had risen to 
 1,800,533.' 
 
 Still more important does this rapid change appear, 
 when we compare each class by their acres. Then we 
 begin to realize something of the real magnitude of the 
 change. So far as we can gather from the census reports 
 in i860, not more than 30 per cent, of the farm lands 
 were held by owners of over 100 acres ; in 1880, not 
 less than 75 per cent, was in the hands of this class. In 
 i860, the acres in possession of holders of above 500 
 acres were (taking the lowest limit of average) not over 4 
 per cent, of the total ; in i88o, not less than 12 percent. 
 
 It may be contended that all these movements toward 
 increase in the average size of land-holdings are taking 
 place only in the West, where foreigners have absorbed 
 so much of the land that the old States are holding to 
 their normal conditions. Even if this were the case, it 
 would not do much to disprove the statement that the 
 typical American farm was disappearing ; but what are 
 the facts even in this case ? We select three of the most 
 prominent of the farming States of New England, for the 
 purpose of comparison — Massachusetts, Maine, and Ver- 
 mont. These old States contained, in i860, 94,723 holders 
 of land of roo acres and under ; in 1880, only 73,892 ; 
 whereas, of holdings of upwards of 100 acres, there was 
 an increase of 34,435, or from 23,412 to 57,847. 
 
 In the foregoing calculation all holdings below ten 
 acres are included. In 1880 they amounted to about 5 
 
 ' It must be remembered that but for the subdivision of plantations 
 in the South, since i860, the total change in the comparative decrease 
 of small holdings Avould appear far more conspicuously. 
 
56 AMERICAN FARMS. 
 
 per cent, of the total for these States. They probably 
 represent the number of holdings occupied by other 
 classes than tillers of the soil. But ten acres and under 
 have, in many cases, supported families. We are brought 
 face to face with the startling fact that 20,821 of the 
 typical farms of these States during the twenty years, 
 1860-80, had either been abandoned to the wilds alto- 
 gether, or become attached to the large estates. No 
 doubt the transformation has been in both directions. 
 If in either, however, the changed condition is one for 
 serious thought. 
 
 One of America's most famous economists ' states that 
 between 1875 and 1885 the woodland of Massachusetts 
 increased 49.64 per cent. In this State the tacking-on 
 must have been very considerable, as the number of 
 holdings above 500 acres had increased in the twenty 
 years — 1860-80 — by 254, while the cultivated land had 
 fallen from 2,133,436 to 2,128,311 acres. 
 
 In the State of Maine the holdings of over 100 acres 
 were only 9 per cent, of the total in i860 ; in 1880 they 
 were 39 per cent. In i860 there were only 2 holders 
 of estates exceeding 1,000 acres ; in 1880 there were 116. 
 
 Using the lowest limit of the census figures, we find 
 that there were 64,550 acres of the lands of Massachu- 
 setts, Maine, and Vermont in the hands of holders of up- 
 wards of 500 acres in the year i860, but in 1880 these 
 acres had swollen to 856,000. Using the medium figures 
 for the 10- to 50-acre holdings, there were in the neigh- 
 borhood of 1,624,485 acres of farm lands in these small 
 divisions in i860, but in 1880 only 1,009,750. 
 
 With such figures as these, culled from official sources, 
 who can deny that the lands of New England, and, in 
 
 ' Hon. David A. Wells. 
 
THE TYPICAL AMERICAN FARM. 57 
 
 fact, of the whole United States, are not rapidly assum- 
 ing a shape other than that represented by the typical 
 American farmer ? 
 
 I^ is well known that the Wall Street capitalists are 
 becoming owners of vast tracts of Western lands, and that 
 Boston capitalists are getting a mortgage grip upon the 
 New England farms, while British capital is fast coming 
 to the position of controlling more land in America than 
 at home. Restricted in the United States, it turns its 
 attention to Canada. 
 
 Aliens may have absorbed the new lands of Western 
 States, but how are we to account for the rapid absorp- 
 tion of the small properties by the large in the East ? 
 
 A like condition is developing in Canada. The great 
 Northwest is falling into the hands of the moneyed classes. 
 In Manitoba 44 per cent, of the land-holdings in 1880 
 were of the classes above 500 acres ; in the territories 58 
 per cent, were upwards of 500 acres in area. Sir Lester 
 Key now manages for a $2,000,000 syndicate 1,200,000 
 acres of Canadian lands. 
 
 By reckoning the i,ooo-acre classes, we have gained 
 but a slight insight into the real condition of affairs, but 
 we see enough to exemplify one important phase of the 
 nature of the question under discussion. 
 
CHAPTER VI. 
 
 RENTED FARMS. 
 
 Through the United States census of 1880 an effort 
 was made to ascertain the tenure of American farms, 
 with the following result : It was found that out of a 
 total of 4,008,907 farms and plantations, 1,024,601 were 
 rented for money or worked on shares. This went to 
 show that, at that time, slightly over 25 per cent, of all 
 the farms of the United States were not owned by the 
 occupiers. 
 
 In studying the census report still further, it will be 
 found that of the 2,208,374 holdings of less than 100 
 acres, 730,702, or 33 per cent., were not owned by the 
 occupiers. But of the holdings of from 500 to 1,000 
 acres, 87 per cent, were owned by the occupiers ; and the 
 holdings of above 1,000 acres were thus owned to the 
 extent of 90 per cent, of the total. It is true, the largest 
 proportion of rented farms is in the South, where the 
 land has been rented to the negroes since their liberation, 
 and it is true also that the largest proportion of small 
 holdings are tenanted. 
 
 The census statistics, however, teach us that at the 
 date of their formation 7 per cent, of the farms of New 
 England were occupied by tenants, or one in about every 
 fourteen, and of New York 16 per cent., or one in about 
 every seven. Farther west, on the rich and productive 
 
 58 
 
RENTED FARMS. 59 
 
 lands of Ohio, 20 per cent, of the farms were rented, or 
 one in every five. 
 
 In Canada a fraction less than 12^ per cent, of the 
 lands were rented in 1880, or one in about every eight — 
 owners and occupiers numbering 403,491, and tenants as 
 occupiers, 57,245. 
 
 In the Maritime Provinces one in every fourteen farms 
 was occupied by tenants, and in Ontario one in every 
 six. 
 
 In addition to the discovery recently made by the New 
 York State assessors, that, in fourteen counties visited 
 farm land is declining in value while city property is in- 
 creasing, sufficient information was gained on the ques- 
 tion of rented farms to warrant the State assessor in 
 forming the opinion that, " in a few years there will be 
 few left but tenant farmers." 
 
 When we consider that about 25 per cent, of the small 
 farms of the United States are already in the hands of 
 capitalists, and the occupiers are mere tenants, and that 
 this condition is on the increase, and add to this that 
 capitalists have mortgages on at least 20 per cent, of the 
 remainder, and further, that small farms are disappear- 
 ing, we may well say that the typical industry of rural 
 America is fast becoming a thing of the past. 
 
CHAPTER VII. 
 
 ABANDONED FARMS. 
 
 One who has been familiar with the past history of 
 the farm-homes of a country, who has known of the 
 struggles and triumphs of the early possessors of these 
 properties, cannot but be saddened when he sees them, 
 one after another, abandoned ; the lands to become the 
 pasture domain of more successful estates, or to be en- 
 tirely given over to the public common. To be a wit- 
 ness to the industry, the planning, and the achievements 
 in moulding, in fashioning, and in subduing these spots 
 to the tastes and requirements of the occupiers, and then 
 to see them at last entirely surrendered to the wilderness, 
 is surely an impressive picture, even to the most indifferent 
 mind. Such an observer cannot but ask the question : 
 " Is this not an evidence of coming national decay ? " 
 
 Large tracts of country — away from the towns and 
 cities — in the old States and Provinces of America are 
 thus being transformed ; and not only are these manifes- 
 tations of failure on the part of our old farms to hold 
 their own against the conditions of the times confined 
 to the old States, but are rapidly extending over the 
 continent. 
 
 The New England farms hav? been the first, however, 
 to succumb. There are several reasons for this, though 
 
 60 
 
ABANDONED FARMS. 6 1 
 
 none of them give any assurance that the disease is not 
 to become general among the typical farms of America. 
 
 Through the Boston Advertiser, a rather conservative 
 journal, we have the following graphic picture of the 
 desolation which already reigns over portions of Massa- 
 chusetts, once the settlements of happy and prosperous 
 farmers : 
 
 " Throughout the State of Massachusetts, away from 
 the cities and from the large towns, may be met, besides 
 oral reports, traces of farms once yielding a support 
 to their occupants, but now abandoned. The signs of 
 former tenancy are to be found in conditions varying 
 from the indications of recent occupancy to those of a 
 generation or longer ago. Sometimes the dwelling-house 
 has a look of neatness, in its white paint and green blinds, 
 not yet yielding much to the weather. The barns, wagon 
 sheds, corn-cribs, and other out-buildings will be black- 
 ened, of course, from exposure of their unpainted surface, 
 but yet have in them wear and utility. But the stillness 
 of a solitude haunts the place, and the sign, afBxed to a 
 tree, 'For Sale,' stirs in the practical observer the sus- 
 picious question. Why ? He glances over the undulating 
 fields, where now the grass is growing thinly, and thence 
 back to the stone wall, so carefully laid as to suggest that 
 at some inspection by a committee of an agricultural 
 fair, it must have won a prize. What labor the red- 
 dened and wearied hands must have expended here, and 
 yet the sons have not stayed to reap any profit from the 
 father's toil ! 
 
 " Again, the house is not so trim. The storms of several 
 decades have worn the paint away. The clapboards are 
 darkening in the weather. The mortar has crumbled 
 from between the bricks in the chimneys, so that you 
 
62 AMERICAN FARMS. 
 
 see the light of the sky through the crevices. Some of 
 the panes in the windows are broken. The front door 
 hangs ajar. The winds sigh through the empty wood- 
 shed. The out-buildings, first to go, are falling in. 
 Acres of land once cultivated lie around. The sign 
 announcing the place as being for sale is broken and 
 hanging by a single nail, and the words are almost 
 untraceable. 
 
 " Another scene will represent a ruin. The roof has 
 tumbled in. The charming prospect of hill and dale and 
 wood and setting sun is now never more to be shut out 
 from the front door, where once the busy housewife may 
 have sometimes glanced, for the door is swung far back 
 and gaping on the scene, and no one is there to push it 
 to. At some time or other the barn fell down, and the 
 boards and timbers are rotting from the repeated dryings 
 and wettings. It is a scene of desolation. The sugges- 
 tiveness of former tenancy imparts to it a melancholy, 
 such as a mere old cellar or the traces of a stone under- 
 pinning do not have. These, too, may be found some- 
 times in the midst of lonely woods, where the trees have 
 grown up in the fields formerly ploughed and sowed, so 
 that the owner is already counting on their value at some 
 lone saw-mill. But where the remnant of a frame is 
 standing, it suggests the farmer's hopes, the housewife's 
 counsels, the ploughboy's whistle, once known here, and 
 now gone forever. 
 
 " Large areas are now offered for sale. The prices 
 asked for the land are low compared with the prices 
 asked for land in the places where the population is 
 growing." 
 
 If any State of New England can be said to have made 
 verifiable progress in the past, it is Massachusetts ; and 
 
ABANDONED FARMS. 63 
 
 yet the foregoing is the report with which a leading jour- 
 nal furnishes its readers. The article further states : 
 
 " Take the farmers of Franklin County. It has been 
 estimated that their average surplus of profit above 
 expense does not exceed $75 a year. In some localities 
 in that county, a farmer, who, at seventy-five, has ac- 
 cumulated $3,000 or $4,000, is thought to have attained 
 to the greatest measure of success. 
 
 " But many have found themselves unequal to the strug- 
 gle between the expenses and the profits. Not, indeed, 
 the large proportion of the farmers of the preceding 
 generation, but the sons, who, though laborious and 
 well-meaning, have not had the discipline that comes 
 from originating an enterprise, but have depended upon 
 their father's training and instruction. In the unequal 
 battle they have given up and fled from the field." 
 
 The cause assigned for the abandoned farms of New 
 England ' is one that is given by many — the competition 
 of the Western farms has been too severe, and in the 
 unequal contest the New England competitor has been 
 obliged to give up and flee to other parts. 
 
 The Hon. David A. Wells says : " A few years ago 
 the inhabitants of Ludlow, formerly a most prosperous 
 town in Windsor County, Vermont, memorialized the 
 legislature to the effect that there were twelve deserted 
 farms within the town limits, and asked permission to 
 guarantee to any persons who would lease and work 
 them exemption from taxation, local and State, for a 
 considerable term of years." He also states : "All over 
 New England, farms in abundance can now be pur- 
 chased for less than the cost of the improvements upon 
 
 ' Official reports state that in six towns in Massachusetts the un- 
 occupied dwellings number from ten to forty-five. 
 
64 AMERICAN FARMS. 
 
 them, — yes, for less than the cost of the construction of 
 their stone walls." ' 
 
 A writer in the Grange Homes, of Boston, mentions 
 seeing farms sold in Vermont for less than the cost of 
 the buildings upon them. He pertinently suggests the 
 query : The fathers among the hills were poor ; but they 
 cleared away the forests, raised and educated families, 
 and built homes. Why do the buildings now sell for 
 less than they are worth, with one or two hundred acres 
 of land thrown in to make the trade ? " Yes, why are 
 these lands being abandoned ? Why are the farmers 
 becoming mere tenants ? Why are mortgages settling 
 down on the old farms of America ? Why is the wealth 
 of farmers all over the land so little increased, when the 
 aggregate wealth is growing so rapidly ? Why is such a 
 large proportion of the agricultural class of the world 
 groaning under the trouble of procuring the necessities 
 of civilized life ? Why all this, while agriculture stands 
 at the base of all material development ? 
 
 ' The catalogue of the abandoned farms of New Hampshire contains 
 particulars of 352 of these, referring to whfch the State Commissioner 
 says, that " in most instances these farms have not been abandoned 
 because the soil has become exhausted, or from the lack of natural 
 fertility, but from various causes appearing in the social and economic 
 history of the State." 
 
 On August II, 1889, the New York Tribune had an article on the 
 decline of the farming industries of Vermont, in which it said: 
 " Good lands are offered for sale as low as $3 an acre, and it is said 
 that it will be necessary to make $5 an acre the maximum price for 
 settlers, if the new Vermont boomers expect to compete with Western 
 lands. It may, as a vivid notion of the extent to which the depopu- 
 lating process has gone on, be said, that no difficulty was encountered 
 in finding abandoned farms in one locality to furnish contiguous 
 farms for the first proposed colony of fifty families. In fact, four 
 such localities were found." 
 
BOOK III. 
 
 AGRICULTURE'S STRUGGLE. 
 
 Man becomes more free as the prices of rude products and finished 
 commodities approximate. — Henry C. Carey. 
 
 The whole question of freedom or slavery for man is therefore 
 embraced in that of competition. — Henry C. Carey. 
 
CHAPTER I. 
 
 THE FARMER S COTEMPORARIES. 
 
 It is necessary to keep the fact well in view, that there 
 are those cotemporary with the farmer who are prosper- 
 ing, or who are gathering to themselves wealth and the 
 various powers which abundance yields. 
 
 In a former chapter it was shown that relatively the 
 other great classes in the aggregate were leaving the 
 farmer far behind in the race for wealth, but nothing 
 was done to show the position of other special industries. 
 
 Some industries in America, like that of agriculture, 
 are in a depressed, if not a ruinous, condition. Shipping 
 is prosperous in some countries, but going to ruin in 
 America. This is admitted on all sides, and will require 
 little verification. 
 
 Manufacturing stands out prominently as of the utmost 
 importance in almost every dissertation on the industrial 
 progress of America. It certainly occupies a large place 
 in giving employment to labor, in the production of 
 wealth, and to development of various kinds. 
 
 Its real magnitude, as well as the importance which 
 the prevailing thought and political policies of the time 
 evidently tender it, as compared with their treatment of 
 agriculture, makes its consideration one of great moment 
 in the discussion we have entered upon. 
 
 67 
 
68 AMERICAN FARMS. 
 
 By the United States census reports of 1880 we find 
 that the capital engaged in mining, mechanics, manufac- 
 turing, and in the production of petroleum in the Union, 
 amounted to $2,790,000,000, employiiig 22 per cent, of 
 the industrial population, or 3,838,112 persons, who 
 threw on the market that year a production valued at 
 $5,679,854,599. It is estimated, that of this amount, 
 $3,394,000,000 went into it in the shape of raw material,- 
 which would leave $2,285,854,599 to represent the net 
 production for the year, or $595 for each person engaged. 
 Employed in agricultural pursuits were 7,670,493 indi- 
 viduals, or 44 per cent, of the total industrial population, 
 with a capital of $12,602,000,000, whose products — not 
 including increase in value of farm stock — amounted to 
 only $2,213,402,564. 
 
 A more comprehensive estimate made by Mr. J. R. 
 Dodge, Statistician of the Department of Agriculture, 
 gave $3,600,000,000 as the total value of the products of 
 agriculture for the census year ; which amount includes 
 an allowance of $r,ooo,ooo,ooo for home consumption, 
 giving $473 for each. The farmers' outlay for seeds and 
 other articles consumed in procuring a crop (to say 
 nothing of taxes, insurance, etc.), would average not 
 much less than $100, leaving the average farmers of 
 America (including farm laborers) a net income $220 less 
 than the average manufacturer. It is claimed that farm- 
 ers have been paying as high wages to labor as have 
 been paid by manufacturers, and especially is this the 
 case when compared with the wages paid by the great 
 cotton and iron industries. Then the farmer, with his 
 farm, his capital, and his labor, is receiving a share in the 
 national income reduced in exchange value to very small 
 proportions compared with the manufacturer. Thus we 
 
THE FARMER'S COTEMPORARIES. 69 
 
 find that though the farmers are by far the most impor- 
 tant class in numbers, they are of very much less impor- 
 tance in regard to the exchange value of their productions. 
 
 Mr. Andrew Carnegie states that " in manufacturing, 
 the annual product of each operative has advanced in value 
 from |i,ioo in 1850 to $2,015 in 1880." ' The increase to 
 agriculture shows really no advance compared with this. 
 
 From a computation of that reliable statistician Mr. M. 
 G. Mulhall, we find that the per capita valuation of the 
 wealth of the United States, exclusive of agricultural 
 wealth, rose from $250 in i860 to $502 in 1880, or an 
 increase of slightly over 100 per cent. Surely this does 
 not seem much like decadence. 
 
 On the other hand, the value of the agricultural wealth 
 only increased by 22.5 per cent., or from $280 to $343 
 per inhabitant in the twenty years. 
 
 Looking to the State of Massachusetts, of which the 
 serious decadence of agriculture is admitted or confirmed 
 by "official documents," we find that from the year i860 
 to 1880, the per capita valuation of property in this 
 State rose from $662 to $1,568. Here we find agriculture, 
 in close proximity to largest consuming markets for the 
 productions of agriculture, absolutely falling behind, 
 while others are rapidly advancing. 
 
 At this very time (1889), when so much is said about 
 the decay of the farm interests of this State, reports come 
 to us of enormous profits to many other industrial enter- 
 prises within its borders during the past year (1888). I 
 will name those of one city. Fall River, in the cotton 
 manufacturing industry. 
 
 Four mills, with a capital of $2,500,000, declared earn- 
 ings of $663,000, or 26 per cent, upon their capital. 
 
 ' "Triumphant Democracy.'' 
 
•JO AMERICAN FARMS. 
 
 The Amflskeag Catton Company is reported to have 
 cleared in the past year (1888) $425,000. It paid a 
 dividend of 25 per cent., and put 4 per cent, by for 
 surplus. 
 
 Many branches of commerce and manufacturing in 
 this old State are, no doubt suffering from a lop-sided 
 trade, owing to the restrictive character of the fiscal pol- 
 icy of the Union, but capital, even in this State, is gath- 
 ering more and more power. 
 
 In the Empire State, agricultural property declines ; 
 but here we find that the average wealth of some classes 
 must be increasing at a very rapid rate. The per capita 
 valuation of property in this State was only $475 in i860 ; 
 but in 1888 it had risen to $1,499. ^'^ 1890 it will not 
 be less than $2,000. 
 
 Going farther, to the State of Ohio, of which it has 
 been said one half of the whole assessed value of the 
 farm lands is covered by mortgages, the per capita valu- 
 ation of property rose from $510 in i860 to $1,032 
 in 1880. 
 
 In the city of Cleveland, of this State, is the great 
 Rolling-Mill Company, owned by the three Chisholms, 
 of which Mr. Erastus Wiman remarked in his speech at 
 Dufferin Lake in Ontario in July of 1887 : " The products 
 of this firm last year reached the enormous sum of $12,- 
 000,000. These are some of the items which comprise 
 this aggregate : 
 
 100,000 tons of steel rails $3,600,000 
 
 150,000 tons of pig-iron 3,000,000 
 
 50,000 tons merchants' steel boiler-plate 
 
 and sheets 2,750,000 
 
 40,000 tons wire 2,400,000 
 
THE FARMER'S COTEMPOPARIES. /I 
 
 " With an increased output and an advance in the prices 
 their business this year will probably reach the high fig- 
 ure of $15,000,000, a sum equal to the whole earnings of 
 the Grand Trunk Railway, a corporation of 40,000 share- 
 holders, and at least 50 per cent, more than the whole 
 earnings of the whole Canada Pacific Railway, to which 
 you (in Canada) have donated $^100,000,000. All this 
 was the growth of a little more than twenty years. . . . 
 Think of the business of this one firm of American-Ca- 
 nadians nearly equalling the aggregate earnings of your 
 two great systems of railways, whose combined capital 
 reaches away up beyond $300,000,000." 
 
 Going south, to the State of Pennsylvania, where the 
 greatest iron and coal industries of the Union are located, 
 the farmers are not making any headway toward increas- 
 ing their stores of wealth. At the same time the aggre- 
 gate wealth of this State is increasing with wonderful 
 rapidity. In i860 the whole wealth of Pennsylvania was 
 estimated at $1,416,510,818. Not a paltry amount by 
 any means, but small compared with the wealth of i88o 
 — $5,393,000,000 ; rising from a per capita valuation of 
 $487 in i860 to $[,259 in 1880. 
 
 Here we find among other successful enterprises the 
 famed Edgar Thompson Works, of whose proprietor — 
 Mr. Andrew Carnegie, — Mr. Wiman at Dufferin Lake, 
 made this remark : " A little over twenty years ago, they 
 (Andrew Carnegie and brother) went into the iron busi- 
 ness. One of the two brothers recently died, and the 
 other, Andrew Carnegie, now employs more than 7,000 
 men, and his business will this year very nearly equal the 
 combined earnings of both your combined Grand Trunk 
 and Canadian Pacific Railway systems." 
 
 Certainly " times " cannot bear hard on one who can 
 
72 AMERICAN FARMS. 
 
 boast of a yearly net income of $1,250,000, and who, 
 besides supporting an establishment in America, has his 
 castle in Scotland for a summer retreat. 
 
 The Standard Oil monopoly, which started not many 
 years ago with a capital of $1,500,000, and is now said 
 to be declaring dividends on $90,000,000, has made 
 this vast fortune, and the fine dividends which it has 
 paid to its lucky stockholders, out of the control of an 
 article almost wholly consumed by the rural populations. 
 
 This concern is now able to dictate State and national 
 legislation and the management of most important rail- 
 way systems. It is absorbing the oil lands of Ohio, and 
 will soon have the whole oil business of North America 
 under its own management. This great monopoly has 
 evidently been able to bear up against troubles of all kinds. 
 
 As to Michigan, of which official reports prove the 
 serious nature of the troubles under which its farmers 
 labor, the per capita value of property rose from $343 in 
 i860, to $837 in 1880. Of the iron industries of this 
 State Mr. Wiman says : 
 
 " Recall the isolation, the barrenness of Canadian iron 
 regions, and contrast them with the activity of the upper 
 peninsula of Michigan, whose total money value of out- 
 put in 1883 was over $24,000,000 ! Listen to the story 
 of one or two mines as told in the following extract from 
 a report on the Gogebic region, Michigan, a State just 
 next door to Canada : 
 
 " ' The Menominee Mining Company was organized ten 
 years ago on the modest capital of $100,000, which, not- 
 withstanding the extent of its operations, which cover 
 the working of six mines, has never been increased. 
 The company has already paid to its stockholders 
 $6,500,000. So great is the appreciation of its shares, 
 
THE FARMER'S COTEMPORARIES. y^ 
 
 that a single one has sold as high as $6,750 upon a par 
 of $100 ! The total output of its mines for the seven 
 years up to 1883 was 1,569,929 tons. Take, for example, 
 a stockholder in the Republic Company who bought his 
 shares when they were at their lowest, and held them. 
 He may have purchased the original stock at $r2, on a 
 par of $25, and possibly lower. From that point it rose 
 to $325. Then the capital was increased from $500,000 
 to $2,400,000, and the stock rose as high as $67, or $335 
 a share for the whole stock. This profit does not take 
 into account the enormous dividends that were being 
 paid in the meantime, frequently more than 100 per 
 cent. The stock of the Cleveland Company has sold as 
 low as $6 or $7. From these figures it advanced to about 
 $250. The company made an increase of capital similar 
 to the Republic's, and its new shares sold as high as $40 
 and as low as $14 ; its present price is about $20. But 
 aside from the fluctuations of market the steady holders 
 of Cleveland liave enjoyed much larger returns than they 
 could get out of any other security. During the last six 
 years this company has paid two dividends of 80 per 
 cent, and one of 120 per cent. The Lake Superior Com- 
 pany is another mine that has made its stockholders rich. 
 The capital of the company, originally half a million, 
 was increased to $1,500,000. The quotation of the new 
 stock has ranged from %^^ to $80. The old sold as 
 high as $400, we believe. The Lake Superior is one of 
 the big dividend payers, and the steady holders have 
 been unable to get Aladdin's lamp out of their minds ! ' " 
 The Calumet Hecla Copper Company, started a few 
 years ago with a capital of $1,200,000, has paid dividends 
 amounting to $20,000,000, and still holds a property 
 valued at $29,000,000. 
 
 4 
 
74 AMERICAN FARMS. 
 
 The Iron Age, of New York, a well-informed authority, 
 in its issue of August 4, 1887, gave some information of 
 the doings of one huge enterprise. It said : " An estab- 
 lishment which can show gross earnings amounting to 
 over $i4,ooo,poo in twelve months as the result of manu- 
 facturing operations exclusively, is certainly entitled to 
 be called great. This is the showing made to the stock- 
 holders of the North Chicago Rolling-Mill Company at 
 their annual meeting, which was held in Chicago on the 
 2Sth ult." 
 
 We are aware that figures are given to show that the 
 money made in great enterprises does not, as a rule, stay 
 by the families of those who engage in them ; but the 
 fact remains that every year a larger proportion of the 
 national income finds its way to this class than ever be- 
 fore ; while it finds a larger proportion of the farmers 
 facing financial ruin than ever before. 
 
 Manufactures may not always pay large dividends, 
 especially when forced into existence where not required, 
 or in localities not suited to their development, or when 
 they have been outdone by new rivals with superior ad- 
 vantages. The question for the farmer's consideration 
 is : Are not these losses, of whatever nature they may be, 
 frequently thrown on the farmer ; and are not these 
 manufacturers, whether they succeed or fail, given a 
 chance to enjoy large incomes and the luxuries of life 
 for at least a time, while the farmer must be satisfied 
 with a narrow income and the satisfaction of only the 
 most ordinary wants ? Situated in one of the principal 
 towns of New England is a large manufactory, producing 
 an article used almost wholly by the farmers, which pays 
 only a trifling interest to the shareholders. Yet by 
 having a controlling interest, one family has been en- 
 
THE PARMER'S COTEMPORARIES. 75 
 
 abled to draw in salaries from the concern at times the 
 fine sum of $100,000 annually. Such cases are not at all 
 infrequent under the present rigtme. 
 
 Of millionaire concerns, New York boasts of having 
 its hundreds, and Montreal its fifties. The Senate of 
 the United States has its twenty millionaires. How 
 many of these are farmers ? 
 
 Mr. Thomas G. Shearman, the publicist and statistician, 
 states in The Forum, for November, 1889, that there 
 are seventy persons in the United States whose average 
 wealth is over $37,500,000, amounting in the aggregate 
 to $2,700,000,000. The wealth of J. J. Astor is esti- 
 mated at $150,000,000 ; Gould, Stanford, Rockefeller 
 and two Vanderbilts are rated at $100,000,000 each ; two 
 at $70,000,000 each, seven at $40,000,000 each. Then 
 there are four at $35,000,000, thirteen at $30,000,000, 
 ten at $25,000,000, four at $22,500,000, fifteen at 
 $20,000,000, while there are fifty others who are worth 
 $10,000,000, each. These are probably overestimated, 
 but enough is known to establish the fact that the wealth 
 of the United States in the hands of some 250,000 of its 
 people is enormous, whereas the average farmer's wealth 
 is less than it was twenty years ago. 
 
 However, in order to reduce this comparison to the 
 most severe test, we must show the position of the 
 proprietor farmer as compared with the ordinary wage 
 earner. Mr. Edward Atkinson's ' elaborate statistics go 
 to show that the average wages of the laboring class in 
 the United States is about $400 a year, and of the total 
 of the agricultural class $419. He states that " the 
 average farmer can be assumed to earn but a moderate 
 sum above that of the farm laborer." 
 
 ' " Distribution of Products." 
 
^6 AMERICAN FARMS. 
 
 I have averaged the farmer's income at $473 ; and I 
 place the wage earner's income at not less than $350, 
 $50 less than Mr. Atkinson, in order to be within safe 
 bounds. Out of the $473, the farmer must meet cost of 
 production, wear of machinery, loss of stock, pay in- 
 surance, and pay taxes ; all of which would amount to 
 not less than an average of $173. This would leave the 
 farmer $300 for living, savings, and interest on his 
 investment. 
 
 The average farmer's property in the United States, 
 according to census statistics, is $3,019 value. I contend 
 that at least $2,000 of this should be subject to a charge 
 of interest at the rate of 6 per cent, in our calculation. 
 This will leave the farmer $180 for support of family and 
 savings, or $170 less than the wage earner.' 
 
 " The farm does not pay if it merely affords a living 
 and prevents the accumulation of debt. It may do more 
 than this — it may even decrease debt and add to the 
 value of stock and improvements — and yet not pay. It 
 being assumed that the labor and superintendence of the 
 owner is equal in value to the support of the family, then 
 the net accumulations of the year must be equal to the 
 legal interest upon the whole capital invested, or the 
 farm does not pay. This is a simple method of farm 
 book-keeping, and will always answer the question ; yet 
 too many farmers will shrink from applying the test." ° 
 
 ' It is well to note that official reports, now coming in, go to show 
 that the price of labor is gradually increasing, while the returns to 
 agriculture are diminishing. While the wealth of the agriculturists 
 decreased by $8go per farm, the per capita increase of the property of 
 the Union was $566, though the increase in number of those who en- 
 tered occupations other than agricultural, owning nothing, was quite 
 as great as those who had swelled the numbers of the agriculturists. 
 
 ' American Agriculturist, September, 1889. 
 
THE FARMER'S COTEMPORARIES. y/ 
 
 The Hon. Geo. B. Loring gives some statistics recently 
 in the North American Review ' to prove the prosperity 
 of agriculture. I propose analyzing those referring to this 
 question as it relates to Massachusetts, which he assures 
 his readers " is a good illustration of the type of Ameri- 
 can agriculture which increases year by year, and which 
 affords constant labor, and consequently good returns to 
 the farmer." Mr. Loring says that the aggregate value 
 of the agricultural products of the State is $47,756,033 ; 
 that the total agricultural property of the State is valued 
 at $215,230,550 ; that his estimate gives to each person 
 employed in farming about $620 annually, out of which 
 must come the expense of producing and selling the 
 product — the total wages paid annually being $6,390,- 
 252. 
 
 If we assume that the average farm proprietor of 
 Massachusetts is receiving $700 (an outside figure), and 
 out of which deduct $200 for insurance, taxes, repairs, 
 loss of stock, seeds, and fertilizers, we have $500 left. 
 Out of this $500 we have to take, at least, $150 for wages. 
 This would leave $350 for the farmer, the return of an 
 ordinary wage earner, with not a cent for interest on his 
 investment. If the farmer charge this interest, say $150, 
 he would have only $200 for his family to live upon. 
 
 In the paragraph wherein Mr. Loring refers to the 
 above matter, he states that the income of the manufac- 
 turing operatives in Massachusetts averages $364. He 
 has this without a cent risked in the business which em- 
 ploys him. Surely if the laborers of America have cause 
 to make loud and bitter complaints of the inequality 
 under which they labor, the farm proprietors have much 
 more. 
 
 ' March, 1889. 
 
CHAPTER II. 
 
 COMPETITION. 
 
 Taking a wide survey of the subject, we can consis- 
 tently say that a severe competition from even the most 
 distant producing countries is springing up to claim the 
 farmer's serious attention. The wheat fields of the great 
 American prairies have to contend for the markets of 
 the United Kingdom, not only against India and the 
 continent of Europe, but the Argentine Republic is be- 
 coming a formidable rival. India is devoting each new 
 year more than formerly to the production of this great 
 staple. The fourteen thousand miles of railway now 
 constructed in that country tap some of the finest wheat 
 lands of the world, and with plenty of cheap labor to 
 work them. 
 
 Competition all around, and the low rates of trans- 
 portation over the railways of America as well as in 
 other countries, have brought down the price of wheat 
 in the London market, during the last ten years, lower 
 than ever before. During the past five years the average 
 price at Mark Lane has been thirty-five shillings per 
 quarter ; during the decade 1860-70 it averaged fifty-one 
 shillings ; in 1868, sixty-three shillings. 
 
 The cattle and meat exports are also not without 
 rivals. Australia and South America are expanding 
 this trade remarkably. Meats are now sent to the mar- 
 
 78 
 
COMPETITION. 
 
 79 
 
 kets of Great Britain in steamers with vast refrigerators 
 in which these meats are safely carried. One establish- 
 ment on the Plata River is equipped with the necessary 
 facilities for preparing and shipping five hundred car- 
 cases yearly. 
 
 Australia takes the lead in exports of mutton, and is 
 likely still to do so, because of its great natural advan- 
 tages and its shipping facilities. 
 
 The fiscal policy of the United States has made it 
 easy for such European countries as France and Ger- 
 many to find plausible excuse for shutting out American 
 food products. The pork industries, in an especial 
 manner, have suffered from this retaliation. 
 
 Even for the products of the dairy, England is not 
 by any means dependent upon the farmers of America. 
 Danish and Irish butter are now preferred in that 
 country. 
 
 In fact, England is not so absolutely dependent upon 
 outside countries as many suppose. She has large areas 
 uncultivated, which, were they cultivated, would increase 
 her food supply very much. 
 
 It is possible that with her lands all carefully culti- 
 vated, the present yield might be doubled, an amount 
 which would more than feed the people. In 1880, 
 according to Sir James Caird, a most reliable authority, 
 her consumption of corn and vegetable products was 
 of the value of ;!£^386,637,5oo, of which her own soil 
 contributed ^^260,737, 500. 
 
 These economic facts, apparent to the observing 
 citizen, are of great practical importance to the food 
 exporter. They evidently point to the conclusion that 
 competition is likely to be even more severe in the 
 future than in the past, and should be met by the 
 
8o AMERICAN FARMS. 
 
 American agriculturists if they would have their pro- 
 ductions find customers in foreign marts. No possible 
 home policy can shut off this competition. 
 
 Neither is the outlook at home any more cheering. 
 The small or least favored grain producers, who have 
 been unable to change their labors to other directions, 
 are being borne down by the overwhelming odds pitted 
 against them. The majority of the great "bonanza 
 farms," from which the severe competition comes, have, 
 in many cases, cost the owners comparatively but a trifle, 
 while little outlay is required for fertilizers. Further- 
 more, the most effective machinery to be procured is 
 being employed to turn these unequalled natural re- 
 sources into food products. 
 
 Of this, says a noted American economist ' : "A 
 huge abundance therefore ensues from the least amount 
 of human labor. On some of the fattest land of the 
 West, the measure of the product of one man, working 
 the best machinery with a pair of horses, has reached 
 one hundred tons of corn in a single season. The aim of 
 some of the great ' bonanza farms ' of Dakota has been 
 to apply machinery so effectually that the cultivation of 
 one full section, or six hundred and forty acres, shall 
 represent one year's work of only one man. This has 
 not yet been reached, but so far as the production of 
 the grain of wheat is concerned, one man's work will 
 now give one thousand persons enough for a barrel of 
 flour a year, which is the average ration." 
 
 On the great farms of the West ploughing is per- 
 formed by immense double-gang ploughs — too expensive 
 and ponderous for use on the small farms. Each 
 plough is drawn by four horses, the ploughman riding 
 ' Mr. Edward Atkinson, 
 
COMPETITION. 8 1 
 
 upon it as it moves along, cutting two furrows of 
 fourteen inches wide. When it is considered that not 
 infrequently four of these four-horse teams, one after 
 the other, are seen in the same field, cutting furrows 
 miles in length, an idea is gained of what is being 
 done in the West by machinery and a very limited 
 amount of human labor. One man, who does the har- 
 rowing, drives four horses attached to a gang of four 
 harrows, covering a width of twenty-four feet. The 
 seed is sown by broadcast seeders, planting seed over a 
 width of sixteen feet, and drawn by four horses. To 
 gather the harvest self-binding reapers, drawn by three 
 horses, are also managed by one man. 
 
 Of the great reapers one farm in Dakota operates 
 sixty-five. It is said that " Dr. Glen's forty-five thou- 
 sand acres of wheat in California in 1880 were gathered 
 by machines, each of which cut, threshed, winnowed, 
 and bagged, sixty acres of wheat in a day." 
 
 The threshing and cleaning are mostly done by steam 
 power in the field, and the grain is frequently hauled in 
 bulk to the railway stations to be deposited in elevators 
 or warehouses. 
 
 Mr. Dalrymple's hundred square miles of wheat are 
 cultivated and gathered with machines and a troop of 
 four hundred farm servants. Mr. Andrew Carnegie, in 
 referring to this in his " Triumphant Democracy," gives his 
 opinion that it would require five thousand men in the 
 ordinary way of the East to accomplish the same result. 
 
 As conditions exist it seems practically impossible for 
 small farmers to compete with farming conducted on 
 such a stupendous scale as that on the great farms of 
 the West. 
 
 At home, the broad ranches of Texas, Kansas, and 
 
 4* 
 
82 AMERICAN FARMS. 
 
 Other States of the West, are providing the meat markets 
 of the old States of the East, even to the Pine Tree 
 State and the Maritime Provinces. 
 
 The numerous railways traversing the continent have 
 brought the vast prairies practically alongside the East- 
 ern consumers. In 1865, it cost from three to four 
 cents a ton per mile,, to convey freight to the Atlantic 
 seaboard. It is now done for three fourths of a cent. 
 
 " Cornelius Vanderbilt consolidated and perfected 
 the railroad service in such a way that a year's supply of 
 meat and bread can be moved one thousand miles, from 
 the Western prairies to the Eastern workshops, at the 
 measure of the cost of a single day's wages of the 
 mechanic or artisan in Massachusetts, — that is to say, if 
 the mechanic or artisan of the East will give up one 
 holiday in a year, he removes one thousand miles of 
 distance between himself and the main source of his 
 supply of necessary food." ' 
 
 ' Edward Atkinson, " Distribution of Products,'' p. 38. 
 
 The following is from the Halifax Morning Herald, Saturday, No- 
 vember 23, 1889, entitled " Impoverished Farmers" : 
 
 "In recent issues the Herald has called attention to a great body 
 of evidence furnished by state and municipal reports, newspaper 
 articles, public addresses, etc., all of which serve to show that the 
 farmers of the United States, both in New England and in the States 
 farther west, are, relatively speaking, in a most deplorable condition. 
 Large numbers of deserted farms are in vain offered for sale in New 
 England, while others, which were a few years ago in excellent con- 
 dition and free of debt, are now placed under the hammer of the 
 auctioneer to pay the mortgages that have been placed upon them. 
 In the West the farmers are endeavoring as best they can to bear up 
 under their almost overwhelming burden of indebtedness, living 
 largely on their capital-outlay, hoping against hope for better times in 
 the near future. The Bankers Magazine for November, in " A Re- 
 view of Finance and Business,' shows very clearly that the impov- 
 
COMPETITION. 83 
 
 HOME MARKET. 
 
 - Compare the position of the different localities in 
 America, as regards the production of grain and live- 
 stock fifty years ago, with the present, and it will be 
 found that, at that time, the farmers had the advantage 
 of a home market, while to-day no locality can boast of 
 being practically a home market. During the past half- 
 century the increase of the town and city populations of 
 Massachusetts has been upwards of 100 per cent., and 
 the increase of the aggregate wealth over 200 per cent., 
 while during the same period the increase in the pro- 
 duction of live-stock has been but a trifle, and an actual 
 decline of over 36 per cent, has come about in the 
 production of grain. 
 
 erished condition of United States farmers is due to a limited demand 
 for their products, and in a consequent decline of prices which does 
 not return him sufficient to pay for his seed and labor. We quote : 
 
 " ' Instead of keeping up her early purchases of our new crop, 
 which were quite free in August, to bridge over the gap between her 
 (i. c. , England) old and new crops, she has taken less and less as we 
 have gone into the new-crop year. Not only this, but it has been in 
 the face of steadily declining prices under an unusually heavy move- 
 ment of the crop, which has been necessitated by the impoverished 
 condition of American farmers. This has been true, not only of 
 wheat, but of every thing the farmer has raised, until prices have 
 reached a point in remote sections which hardly pay for hauling his 
 crops to market after being harvested. This is especially true of 
 corn, oats, and potatoes in the far West, where much of the crops 
 still lie on the ground unhoused, as farmers are too poor to buy the 
 lumber to crib their grain. Potatoes, which rotted so badly in the 
 East, owing to the wet autumn, seemed to have escaped in the West, 
 where they have been selling by the car-load at 20 cents a bushel 
 delivered in Chicago. Oats are selling there at 17 to 18 cents ; corn, 
 30 to 31 cents. How much is left the unfortunate farmer, after pay- 
 ing even the reduced rates of transportation the railways were com- 
 
84 AMERICAN FARMS. 
 
 THE FRUIT PROBLEM. 
 
 As the great grain fields of the West have poured 
 their products into every market at home, the small 
 grain areas of the past have been converted into 
 orchards and vegetable plots ; and now there is not 
 only excessive production in cereals, but also in all 
 other field productions. Only a few months ago (June, 
 1888), fifteen to twenty thousand crates of fruit and 
 vegetables, " in good condition," were destroyed in New 
 York Harbor to relieve an, overstocked market. Large 
 portions of the South, such as the country around Norfolk, 
 Virginia, have recently become devoted to fruit and vege- 
 table culture for Northern consumption. This production 
 will, do doubt, be vastly increased in the near future, if 
 the new cotton-picking machines, now under contem- 
 plation, drive the negroes from the industry of cotton- 
 picking, which has given so many of them employment 
 in the past. 
 
 pelled to make in order to get the farmers to move their crops at all, 
 can easily be figured. He is not getting enough to pay for his seed 
 and his labor, and the result is seen in the wholesale default in inter- 
 est, not only on farm mortgages, but on farm implements and live- 
 stock, which are being foreclosed, and the producers of our abundant 
 harvests are left homeless and penniless in an unusually large number 
 of cases to face the inclemency of the winter. As a consequence there 
 is more or less uprising of the farming communities of the far West 
 against the demands of the Eastern loan companies, which have not 
 only kept up the old rates of interest, but in some cases have in- 
 creased them. Cases have come to public notice where 5 per cent, 
 per month is charged upon cattle mortgages. Between the exporters, 
 who refuse to take their crops, except of corn, even at these ruinous 
 prices, and the Eastern and local money-lenders, the farmers of the 
 country are being ground between the upper and neither millstone, 
 instead of their harvests, which are too abundant to house and too 
 cheap to market,' " 
 
COMPE TITION. 8 5 
 
 It certainly seems that in scarcely any line has there 
 been a more rapid increase of competition than in that of 
 fruit-raising. In 1859 the value of the production of the 
 orchards of the United States was $19,991,885 ; in 1879 i' 
 rose to $50,876,154, or an increase of 154 per cent. Mr. 
 Loring now estimates, that by adding all the fruits sold 
 in small cities and villages, and those consumed on the 
 farms enumerated, " the annual value of the fruits of the 
 United States would not fall much below $200,000,000." 
 
 It must also be remembered that at no former period 
 in the history of America has there been a more rapid 
 increase in the area of new orchards than during the last 
 ten years. 
 
 In Canada, in recent years, pomology has become the 
 most popular science of husbandry. Investments in fruit 
 culture are made by both the practical farmer, the theo- 
 rist, and the speculator. And now, as with their contem- 
 poraries, the orchardists of Canada have to deal with the 
 question of competition in a way not dreamed of twenty 
 years ago, except, perhaps, by the very observing publi- 
 cist or economist. In 187 1 the crop of apples in Ontario 
 was estimated at 2,000,000 of bushels ; seventeen years 
 later, 1888, at 20,000,000 of bushels, an increase of over 
 900 per cent, though the population of the Dominion had 
 not increased 30 per cent. 
 
 The apple production of the Annapolis valley in the 
 year 1871 was estimated at 45,000 barrels ; in 1888, at 
 300,000 barrels, — an increase of 566 per cent. In 187 1, 
 80 per cent, of the standard varieties were marketed at 
 home ; at present 50 per cent, of the yield would glut the 
 home market even in a " short-crop " season. It is gener- 
 ally estimated that when the young orchards already 
 planted get into bearing — or ten years hence — the pro- 
 duction of the valley will be over a million of barrels, or 
 
86 AMERICAN FARMS. 
 
 sufficient to supply a population greater than the whole 
 of the Maritime Provinces would contain, seventy-five 
 years hence, at the present rate of increase. 
 
 It seems evident that, to carry on this industry as the 
 orchardists of America have set out, foreign markets, and 
 especially the markets of Great Britain, must be secured 
 in the face of competition growing sharper year by year. 
 
 Australia all at once threatens to become a formidable 
 competitor for the spring markets of London. It is a 
 mistake to suppose that this new rival is at a disadvantage 
 as regards freights ; for the odds are the other way. The 
 commerce carried on between Australia and Great Britain 
 is seven times as much per capita to Australia as that 
 between America and Great Britain is to America. 
 
 Apple producers and shippers cannot dictate the 
 prices, neither at home nor abroad ; while the foreign 
 market decides the prices which may be obtained in the 
 home market. In former times, a local short crop meant 
 high prices in the home market. It was purely a local 
 question. Now, in many cases in the northeastern part 
 of America, the production in most years being greater 
 than consumption, the prices must be fixed in the open 
 markets of the world. 
 
 This (1889) is called an unusually " short apple-crop 
 year " everywhere, and yet prices are not sufficiently high 
 in our domestic markets to make the returns of the aver- 
 age tree any thing like what it would have been twenty 
 years ago under similar circumstances as to its yield. 
 
 COMPETITION BETWEEN THE UPPER AND LOWER 
 PROVINCES. 
 
 Ontario and the Western provinces, with their immense 
 tracts of fertile prairie lands, and their railway system 
 opening these lands up to cultivators even faster than 
 
COMPETITION. 87 
 
 they can be induced to occupy them, are unequalled for 
 competitive farming. The production of cereals is in- 
 creasing by leaps and bounds, and the lands of the older 
 provinces are rapidly giving up the contest in this branch 
 of husbandry. 
 
 Manitoba now bids fair to become the banner potato- 
 producing province. The Canada Pacific Railway's 
 reports state that the yield, per acre, runs up from 300 to 
 800 bushels. The Maritime Provinces, which have 
 hitherto borne the palm in the production of this tuber, 
 fall far behind in their yield per acre, 200 bushels now 
 being considered a good average crop. The surplus yield 
 of potatoes in Manitoba, in 1888, was estimated at two 
 millions of bushels. 
 
 In 1864, twenty-five years ago, the Upper Provinces sent 
 to Nova Scotia beef, pork, hams, butter, lard, and cheese to 
 the trifling amount of $8,269. This was at a time when 
 trade was perfectly free of tariff restrictions. Since the 
 operation of the railways between these provinces, the 
 shipments of farm produce from the Upper Provinces to 
 Nova Scotia have developed to about $100,000 yearly.' 
 According to Mr. A. C. Fairweather, an authority on 
 this subject, $105,000 in cheese, cured meats, and butter 
 alone, were sent from the Upper to the Maritime 
 Provinces in 1884. 
 
 THE BIG FISH CONSUME THE LITTLE. 
 
 The principle of the big fish consuming the little is 
 well exemplified in many of the anomalies connected 
 with the subject of the present competition in husbandry. 
 Some great central interests get all the advantages in re- 
 gard to freights, and others get other favors. The fruit 
 region of Nova Scotia is eight hundred miles nearer to 
 
 ' Including grain and flour, about $2,eoo,ooo. 
 
88 AMERICAN FARMS. 
 
 London than the fruit districts of Ontario ; but it costs 
 more to put apples into the London market from the 
 former than from the latter. These centralizing influ- 
 ences gain more strength every day. 
 
 But perhaps the most trying feature of our develop- 
 ment is the competition growing up between individual 
 operators, the big and the little. How is the small or- 
 chardist to live, who, for instance, is depending chiefly 
 upon his crop of two hundred barrels of apples, in com- 
 peting with the capitalist merchant, lawyer, or banker, 
 as great orchardists, who are satisfied with a small in- 
 terest on their investments. 
 
 There are orchards in America which now turn out 
 from twenty-five to forty thousand bushels of apples. 
 Three hundred acres is the average of a fair-sized or- 
 chard in some parts of the United States, and there are 
 orchards in Canada coming into bearing, which are ex- 
 pected soon to turn out their five to ten thousand 
 barrels annually. 
 
 The small farmers, in competing with their bonanza 
 competitors, must support families and provide them 
 with the necessaries of life through the whole year. The 
 large capitalist operator needs to the amount produced, 
 but a fraction of hired help, and needs it but a short 
 period in each year. 
 
 But this is not all. The odds are entirely in favor of 
 the large operator every time an article is purchased 
 for use upon the farm. Special rates are always for 
 the capitalist's benefit in the commercial world. Thus, 
 we are forced to the conviction, that unlimited com- 
 petition, bearing on the typical American farmer, is a 
 condition which should be regarded as one of utmost 
 significance. 
 
COMPETITION. 89 
 
 Every advantage gained in cost of production by the 
 farmer, in the way of improved implements of husband- 
 ry, in transportation, or through abundant harvests, etc., 
 becomes, not mediately, but immediately, fused through 
 society, for its benefit. On the other hand, though the 
 cost of fabrication is being continually lessened, its 
 prices greatly lowered to consumers, and the compara- 
 tive capacity for its expansion vastly increased, these 
 benefits do not become entirely or immediately fused 
 through society, but sufficient margin remains in the 
 hands of the producers of such fabrications to unduly 
 enrich them. How this advantage is secured to the lat- 
 ter, will be shown in chapters which follow. 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 
 BETWEEN THE UPPER AND NETHER MILLSTONES. 
 
 Whatever be the cause of the troubles to agriculture, 
 the query, as to why contemporaneous industries are not 
 also in the same case, must now be met. 
 
 It is not the result of an unavoidable evolution in the 
 conditions of society which must close in upon the agri- 
 culturists sooner or later everywhere, and in all ages, 
 to overthrow them. 
 
 No, the condition is not natural, it is most decidedly 
 abnormal. The world is governed in its customs, in its 
 sentiments, in its politics, and in its laws, by a false 
 political economy. We magnify the importance of 
 nearly every thing but agriculture, and it is made to 
 bear all kinds of loads that other industries may develop 
 and be made prosperous, until agriculture is crushed 
 beneath the weight ; and government by unjust laws is 
 the chief medium through which this evil is brought 
 about. 
 
 The weight of a ponderous governmental machinery 
 as an outcome of endless law-making, and the granting 
 of privileges to all others at the expense of agriculture, 
 have put the farmers of America between the upper and 
 nether millstones. On the upper stone is the crushing 
 weight of a vicious system of taxation — the usurer, the 
 monopolist, and combines of all kinds pressing upon it, 
 
 90 
 
THE UPPER AND NETHER MILLSTONES. 9I 
 
 while the nether stone stands firm. The first is governed 
 by artificial laws ; the other by natural laws, though natural 
 laws sadly imposed upon ; one by impositions, injustices, 
 and duplicity, the other by the stern logic of facts. 
 
 The price of the farmer's productions is, as we have 
 seen in a former chapter, governed by a world-wide 
 competition, being neither protected by national boun- 
 daries nor by special combinations. This is the natural, 
 the normal condition. On the other hand, the prices 
 which the farmer is obliged to pay for the productions 
 and the services of others are inflated, through the re- 
 sult of artificial barriers, against all competition from 
 production outside the limits of the nation, and by com- 
 binations within. This is the unnatural, the abnormal 
 condition. 
 
 With such as the manufacturer, the conditions are 
 exactly reversed. As producers, -the results of their 
 labors are inflated in exchange value by protection ; 
 whereas, as consumers of farm produce, they have but 
 to pay competition prices. The system of extreme in- 
 direct taxation, as operated in America, gives the great 
 manufacturing industries the power to relieve themselves, 
 however much they may be pressed upon. This is done 
 by forcing unnatural terms upon such as the farmer. 
 
 Whatever the extortion which one manufacturer may 
 practise upon another in the price he demands for his 
 productions, that other finds relief through an equivalent 
 exaction in return ; but the farmer is victimized by both, 
 and he does not, or cannot, retaliate. 
 
 The trades combine one against another, and both 
 against the farmer ; and he does not, or cannot, retaliate. 
 
 Government, in its combination with capital, uses its 
 power against such as the farmer ; and nothing is done, 
 or can be done, by retaliation. 
 
92 
 
 AMERICAN FARMS. 
 
 It is these unnatural conditions which are a chief 
 cause of the relative decline of the farmer's share in the 
 national income ; which are causing the rapid increase of 
 our tenanted and mortgaged farms ; which make the 
 manufacturers and other combiners wealthy, and the 
 farmers comparatively poor ; which cause the fierceness 
 of competition to appear so much more severe in agri- 
 culture than in other occupations ; which do much to 
 dishearten our rural denizens and make them appear 
 unequal to the struggle of life ; which deprive our best 
 citizens of the pleasurable enjoyment and profiting con- 
 sumption of their just and natural share in the results of 
 the progress of the age. 
 
 American shipping engaged in foreign trade is gov- 
 erned by natural laws, the normal condition, on the one 
 hand, and, like agriculture, is crushed by vicious arti- 
 ficial laws on the other, and is being exterminated. 
 When these obstacles were taken from this industry by 
 England's free-trade policy, English shipping received 
 new life. 
 
 From doing but 26 per cent, of the world's ocean 
 carrying-trade at the time of the removal of duties, she 
 now does over 50 per cent. Whereas, in the United States, 
 burdens have been laid upon shipping until United 
 States ships have been pretty nearly driven from the 
 seas. Thirty-five years ago the United States had five 
 million tons of ships sailing the oceans ; they now have 
 less than one million'. 
 
 ' It is frequently contended that it is England's superior advan- 
 tages for building iron steamships that gives her the chance to control 
 the world's carrying-trade. We ask : Did she build all the ships 
 she owned during the first twenty-five years after the repeal of ob- 
 structions to ship-building and ship-owning ? Why cannot America 
 buy, sail, and repair English ships, as England has done in the past 
 with American, and prospered by so doing? 
 
THE UPPER AND NETHER MILLSTONES. 93 
 
 While natural conditions show the immense importance 
 of these great mediums of wealth and general well-being, 
 artificial conditions throttle them. 
 
 Others are empowered to dictate prices to the farmer, 
 but who ever thinks of him taking the advantages which 
 others may take, — for instance, pile up his grain from 
 season to season, until he can sell at his own price ? 
 Does he store away, in times of abundance, his butter, 
 his cheese, etc., knowing that government will help him 
 out, at whatever price he and his neighbors decide to 
 ask ? Can the farmers — as an able writer suggests — 
 meet at hotels, and over their wine and cigars agree as 
 to what the price of their productions shall be, and the 
 public be obliged to submit to it ? 
 
 The manufacturer may run one engine or more, or 
 may shut down as many days in the week as he likes. 
 Legislation is made to insure him against loss, and the 
 consumers of his productions are obliged to furnish the 
 means. 
 
 We are governed by a political economy which takes 
 from the one class upon which our greatest prosperity 
 depends, that another may be empowered to crush it ; 
 national policies, which are based on laws, the actions of 
 which are to victimize the worthy, for the promotion of 
 that which in its effects is unworthy ; which erects a 
 tower, to finally overthrow the whole structure. 
 
CHAPTER IV. 
 
 PROTECTION A DEADLY ENEMY TO THE FARMERS 
 OF AMERICA. 
 
 In fair New England, among the great manufacturers, 
 pampered and protected for generations ; on the broad 
 prairies of the West ; down the valley of the Mississippi, 
 unequalled for its fertility ; in favored Ontario, and in 
 the provinces by the sea, the farmers have a common 
 cause in resisting the great foes which threaten their 
 annihilation. To this end, it is absolutely necessary 
 that their foes be well known, and that their modes of 
 operation be clearly understood. 
 
 It is perfectly familiar to the tariff student, that almost 
 every thing the farmers require as consumers is taxed 
 in America to near the utmost limit. But many protec- 
 tionists maintain that the prices of goods are not higher 
 on account of indirect taxes levied on them. This latter 
 claim is, of course, denied by the state socialist laborer, 
 who contends that the Manchester free-trade theories 
 threaten to bring about a competition that would reduce 
 the price of goods and the price of labor to a shadow. 
 
 The socialists are right, as a rule, in their contention 
 that free competition — that is to say, competition where 
 monopoly controls no part of production — causes a con- 
 stant lowering of the cost and price in exchange of 
 products, but not that through this laborers would be 
 injured. 
 
 94 
 
PROTECTION A DEADLY ENEMY. 95 
 
 Free competition permits the most abundant and per- 
 fect production of goods necessary for man's wants, 
 with the least possible friction. The supplying of these 
 wants in the highest possible degree — that is to say, to 
 gain the most liberal consumption — is the end or aim of 
 all production. Hence, freedom in competition implies 
 increased consumption. Where this freedom is universal, 
 and the exchange of services — that is to say, of the 
 results of labor — is not obstructed; all should gain a 
 benefit. 
 
 Contrariwise, where services or goods made dearer by 
 friction or needless labor or unnatural conditions, on 
 the one hand, are exchanged for services or goods made 
 cheaper by a relief from friction, on the other, their 
 relative conditions are then improper and burdensome 
 to that party who has been handicapped. And now we 
 return to an important point in the subject, and reaffirm 
 that the protective laws of America produce a friction 
 which causes a relative increase in the exchange value 
 of protected commodities. 
 
 Many illustrations may be furnished to show that a 
 friction, and a serious one, is placed on production by 
 our meddlesome laws, but a few of these will suffice. 
 
 Wood screws are protected in the United States by a 
 5^ duty of jp«J'per cent, on the foreign article. The wood- 
 screw combination is said to have paid the English 
 makers of screws ;^ 25,000 yearly, to keep their goods 
 out of the American market. We ask : has the American 
 Screw Combination paid this ^^25,000 out of the pockets 
 of its members for the mere fun of it ? Has it not been 
 taken from the consumers of wood screws in the prices 
 charged them ? 
 
 The Mills tariff bill, which was lately brought before 
 
96 AMERICAN FARMS. 
 
 the American people by the then dominant party, pro- 
 posed to reduce the jpd' per cent, protection to 35 per 
 cent. The manufacturers, of whom a large proportion 
 were supporters of the party proposing the reduction, 
 made such an outcry that the movement was abandoned. 
 They declared, that with a protection of only 35 per 
 cent, the business would be ruined ! What was this but 
 an admission from the manufacturers, either that the 
 manufacturers are taking more than 35 per cent, of its 
 protection from consumers, or that screws may be pro- 
 cured from other countries at 35 per cent, less than in 
 the United States ? 
 
 The window-glass industries of the United States have 
 a protection of 70 per cent. Even with this, the manu- 
 facturers of these goods are not satisfied, and some of 
 them have proposed moving to Belgium for the purpose 
 of manufacturing and shipping to this country in the 
 face of a 70 per cent. duty. Does this not indicate a 
 friction somewhere, and a serious impediment to the 
 production or procuring of these goods ? 
 
 The tack-makers of Canada have a protection equiva- 
 lent to 60 per cent., but these goods are coming in from 
 the United States at regular • prices plus this 60 per 
 cent.; but the Canadian tack-makers, rather than lower 
 their prices to the price of the foreign article plus the 
 duty, desire more protection. This is an industry which 
 was established and prosperous before the high-tariff era 
 in Canada, and it cannot be claimed that such favors are 
 necessary merely " to put them on their feet." 
 
 But here we have a very telling confession from a 
 manufacturer himself, in a circular addressed to the 
 capitalists of the United States, a copy of which will be 
 found by referring to the Iron Age of New York, of 
 
PROTECTION A DEADLY ENEMY. 97 
 
 August 9, 1888. The paper first gives its views of the 
 condition of the nail market in New York. 
 
 " After the dulness of the past month, there is a 
 somewhat better movement in cut nails, and it is 
 observed that the proportion of steel nails called for is 
 growing. Inquiries are running toward heavier lots, but 
 prices remain unsatisfactory, concessions from $i.go on 
 dock for car-load lots being made with some frequency." 
 
 And then the following : 
 
 " E. G. Scovil, of St. John, New Brunswick, has issued 
 a circular, from which we quote as under : ' Your atten- 
 tion is called to the large amount of money which can be 
 made by manufacturing cuf nails and bar iron under 
 the present Canadian tariff. As a paying investment 
 there is nothing to equal it in the history of the Ameri- 
 can iron trade. Cut nails are worth, wholesale, in Ca- 
 nadian market, $2.60 per keg of 100 pounds for xod., and 
 upwards, other sizes in proportion, or 55 cents a keg 
 more than in the Boston market, while scrap iron can be 
 landed here at $4.82 per ton less than in the United 
 States, this amount being the difference saved between 
 United States duty on scrap iron of $6.82 per ton and 
 Canadian duty of $2.00 per ton, viz. : 
 
 Per ton. 
 
 55 cents a keg more than in Boston market, wholesale $11 00 
 
 Saved on scrap iron 4 82 
 
 Total $15 82 
 
 the amount to credit of manufacturing here over and 
 above Boston wholesale prices, which leaves the manu- 
 facturer a good profit. The demand for bar iron is large 
 and increasing, and the profit of manufacturing is much 
 larger than in the United States. Suitable coals from 
 Nova Scotia can be laid down at proposed works for 
 5 
 
98 AMERICAN FARMS. 
 
 $2.65 per ton. Within six months we will have the 
 Short Line Railway open, placing us within sixteen hours 
 of Montreal, which will also open that market to this 
 company, as finished goods can be taken to Montreal 
 and other western points at a much less proportionate 
 rate oif freight than the manufacturers there pay upon 
 our coal, which they must have. I intend forming a 
 company with capital of $200,000 in 2,000 shares of $100 
 each, organized under the laws of New Brunswick. This 
 company will pay a yearly dividend of 20 per cent, on 
 its paid-up capital at present prices.' " 
 
 The foregoing circular was from an old respectable 
 manufacturer, who was quite competent to give correct 
 information. The price of cut nails has been upwards 
 of sixty cents per keg lower in price in New York than 
 in the Provinces for the last two years, and continues so 
 at the present day. The New York Iron Age of August 
 29, 1889, says : "We quote cut nails $1.85 to $1.90 for 
 car-load lots on dock for standard brands and good as- 
 sortments." At the same date not a keg of cut nails is 
 to be procured in Canada for $2.60 
 
 The Maritime Provinces consume about 100,000 kegs 
 of cut nails yearly, of which the farmers should take at 
 least one half. If they consumed 100,000 kegs during 
 the last two years, they have paid out for this one article 
 not less than $70,000 more than had they the privilege 
 of buying where they pleased. 
 
 To manufacture these nails it requires the service of 
 about sixty nail-makers for the period of two years. 
 Their families have consumed in the time not more than 
 $15,000 worth of the products of the Maritime farmers, 
 on which the farmers' profit would not be more than 
 $3,000. 
 
PROTECTION A DEADLY ENEMY. 99 
 
 Domestic nails controlled the Canadian market before 
 the Canadian protective era, and the farmers under 
 comparatively natural conditions had nail-makers for cus- 
 tomers of their productions. Consequently, the farm- 
 ers of the Maritime Provinces are now paying — provided 
 they are consuming the quantity of nails they should — 
 $35,000 worth yearly above free-trade prices, to insure 
 the production of an article which does not in any 
 possible way return them $1,500 yearly net profit, and 
 which was once produced among them with but a trifling 
 artificial stimulant. 
 
 Between 1880 and 1886 every farmer in the United 
 States, on all the nails he purchased, paid an average of 
 thirty-five cents per keg more than had he the privilege 
 of purchasing in the open markets of the world. During 
 this period every pound of horse-nails worn out upon the 
 feet of the horses of the farmers of the United States cost 
 these farmers four cents per pound above free-trade 
 prices. In fact, these articles were, at the time above^ 
 mentioned, sent from Canada to New York for export. 
 
 But it is the tariff against the import of European 
 goods which causes the greatest burden to be put upon 
 the farmers. Every article shipped between the United 
 States and Canada is made dear through the practical 
 prohibition of many European goods. The Canadian 
 tariff is 25 per cent, higher against the average import 
 from England than the average import from the United 
 States. The United States tariff is 50 per cent, higher 
 against England than against the average import from 
 Canada. 
 
 Through United States customs laws about twenty 
 millions of dollars go to revenue from the people's 
 pockets in the enhanced price of imported manufactures 
 
lOO AMERICAN FARMS. 
 
 of cotton, and about ninety millions to the home manu- 
 facturers. Through them at least thirty-five millions of 
 dollars go to revenue in the enhanced price of imports of 
 iron and steel goods, and one hundred millions of dollars 
 to the home manufacturers ; about one hundred and 
 fifty millions to revenue on woollen goods, and one hun- 
 dred to the manufacturers ; about thirty millions to 
 revenue on the import of glass, and fifteen to the manu- 
 facturers ; about five millions to revenue on the consump- 
 tion of salt, and two and one half millions to the domestic 
 producers of salt. Of these amounts at least two thirds are 
 paid by the farmers of the United States. 
 
 In 187 1, Canada manufactured 97 per cent, of her 
 agricultural implements under a tariff of 15 per cent. In 
 the interest of manufacturers the duty has been raised 
 from time to time, until it now averages 39 per cent. 
 The writer is prepared to state that the manufacturers, of 
 all small farming tools at least, have loaded the price of 
 the domestic goods to very near the full extent of this 
 protection. 
 
 On an annual import by the Maritime Provinces of 
 about $150,000 worth of burning oil, a duty of $100,000 
 is exacted, principally from the rural districts, all for 
 the benefit of a few manufacturers in Petrolia. 
 
 In fact, the farmer of both the United States and 
 Canada has to pay protectionist taxes on nearly every 
 thing he eats, drinks, wears, or uses in the prosecution of 
 his industry. He has to do this in order that favorites of 
 this meddlesome system may secure profits from their 
 investments. These favors average from 25 per cent, to 
 100 per cent, in the United States, and quite near as 
 much in Canada, — principally at the expense of the 
 farmer. 
 
PROTECTION A DEADLY ENEMY. lOI 
 
 The socialists are right, that protection implies higher 
 prices for goods, but it does not imply an increase in the 
 exchange value of labor unless the laborer is enabled to 
 combine with the manufacturer. The socialist should 
 learn that there are two values to be considered : one, the 
 value of goods in use or in consumption ; and the other, 
 the value of goods in exchange or in production, and that 
 the former is quite as important in estimating the power 
 of income as the latter. 
 
 Nearly one half of the families of the continent of 
 America, say twenty millions of families, are depending 
 on industries almost directly upon land for their share 
 of what is called the world's wealth. And what is this 
 wealth ? Political economy says : " Riches, or wealth, is, 
 in fact, power — the power of getting what one wishes 
 done by other men, either by remunerating them direct- 
 ly, as in the case of servants, or by purchasing their 
 products, to which labor must be applied." And again : 
 " Wealth may be defined as every thing which answers to 
 men's rational wants. The complete and harmonious 
 development of every human faculty being the object in 
 view, all wants, the satisfaction of which tends tQ this 
 end, may be considered rational." 
 
 It is a true political economy which endeavors to 
 bring about, and to perpetuate, that condition which 
 tends most to secure to all men the power of wealth in 
 return for their labor, time, and efforts. It considers 
 that, barring accidents, the full play of natural laws 
 would go very far toward giving to every industrious and 
 permanent citizen the opportunity in some shape for 
 obtaining an ever increasing store of wealth, or a chance 
 for the satisfaction of an ever increasing number of 
 wants. Not merely power to satisfy the bare necessities 
 
I02 AMERICAN FARMS. 
 
 of an undeveloped existence, but for something far be- 
 yond this — something which makes man a victor over 
 nature ; opportunities for independent action ; the 
 chances for education, for travel, for comforts, for 
 luxuries, for the adornment of homes ; the power for 
 voluntary action in charities, religion, or for social 
 development. It is in the growth of this margin that 
 man becomes an individuality, an independent manhood. 
 
 While natural laws do so much to place these chances 
 within the reach of most men, it is a duty resting upon 
 all, by every legitimate means, to gain, in some shape, 
 the power these represent. 
 
 It is undoubtedly required of men that they occupy 
 as large a place in the affairs of life as possible. The 
 higher their aims, it is the more important that they con- 
 trol the influences which material acquisitions assist in 
 securing. And is it not a beautiful, a grand arrange- 
 ment in the laws of Providence, that the prosperity, the 
 development of one manhood need not interfere with 
 others, but rather that the advance of one may help to 
 carry others forward ? 
 
 Emerson finely says : " Kings have long arms, but 
 every man should have long arms, and should pluck his 
 living, his instruments, his power, and his knowing from 
 the sun, moon, and stars. Is not then the demand to be 
 rich legitimate ? Yet I have never seen a man as rich as 
 all men ought to be, or with an adequate command of 
 nature. The pulpit and the press have many common- 
 places denouncing the thirst for wealth, but if men 
 should take these moralists at their word, and leave off 
 ■aiming to be rich, the moralists would rush to rekindle 
 at all hazards this love of power, lest civilization should 
 be undone." 
 
PROTECTION A DEADLY ENEMY. 103 
 
 Whether the aim be to extend the beneficent influences 
 of religion, or whether we seek to make this abode of 
 man fairer, and brighter, and better through increase in 
 the morality and virtue of its denizens, or, if we con- 
 sider only the purely utilitarian aspect of the question, 
 it is imperative that man's efforts toward the production 
 of wealth shall result in a success that overlaps the satis- 
 faction of the mere felt wants of an existence. But we 
 require conditions which will do most to give to the 
 greatest number these blessings of onward progress ; 
 better that the aggregate of wealth be less, if in the max- 
 imum there must be great inequality. The whole history 
 of man supports the foregoing contention. The greatest 
 progress has been where effort has been crowned with 
 abundant returns. Through these successes in produc- 
 tion power has been borne to the possessor, opportunities 
 have become possible for the storing of wealth, abundant 
 and profitable consumption, leisure for thought, for indi- 
 vidual development. 
 
 Bastiat is correct in his claim that progress everywhere 
 is, in fact, possible only through the increase of result as 
 compared with effort. As effort is at the minimum as to 
 the infinitude of result, so is power increased. Retro- 
 gression must of necessity follow the diminishing of the 
 results of effort, until society is reduced to barbarism, 
 ruin, and annihilation. 
 
 As Bastiat says : Do we not see everywhere that men in 
 the management of their own interests strive by all means 
 to removfi obstacles in order that they may bring effort 
 down to the minimum, and are, on the other hand, en- 
 deavoring by every recourse to secure the maximum of 
 result, by the use of machinery, by invention, by the 
 shortening and improving of routes of travel and of 
 
I04 AMERICAN FARMS. 
 
 transportation, by the removal of difficulties to naviga- , 
 tion, and by securing every market, in all lands, for the 
 cheapest and most desirable articles as agents in repro- 
 duction, or for unproductive consumption ? 
 
 It is also true of our legislators as it was with the 
 legislators of Bastiat's time, that though obstructionists 
 in public policy when looking to their own interests, they 
 show that they recognize the advantages of their procur- 
 ing for themselves the largest returns by their endeavors 
 to escape the friction between effort and reward they 
 place against others. Is it not a common occurrence for 
 legislators to favor friends and corporations by the 
 removal of obstructions to the effectual disposal of the 
 results of labor and to the receiving of the results of the 
 labors of others ? What is all this for but to increase the 
 margin of gain between effort and result ? In Canada a 
 great transcontinental railway has lately been built with 
 free foreign material, and is now disbursed and repaired 
 with stock disencumbered from the taxation burdens 
 which most of other productive enterprises have to bear. 
 What has this been for but to secure to the stockholders 
 the benefits of a great result in return for their efforts ? 
 
 We are told that the success of such enterprises is a 
 boon to the whole people. But is it not so with most 
 enterprises ? Should not the success of agriculture be a 
 boon to the country ? Can a nation afford that the 
 farmers above all others shall not have effort crowned 
 with rich result ? Or is it wisdom to see, without regret, 
 the agricultural population obliged to absorb the stored- 
 up capital of the past in order to cancel the deficit 
 between the effort and result of the present ? 
 
 What sort of a national policy is it that takes no heed 
 to these, when it is so jealous of the interests of others ? 
 
PROTECTION A DEADLY ENEMY. I05 
 
 If government has a full treasury, supplied from the 
 precious metals of the mountains of the moon, why not 
 secure to- agriculture a never failing margin between 
 effort and result ? There is a prevailing opinion or 
 sentiment that our farmers and their like are only show- 
 ing a commendable and, in fact, necessary patriotism in 
 making no complaints against the conditions or the ap- 
 parent impediments which exist between their efforts and 
 liberal returns ; that it is only the proper patriotism for 
 certain classes to make no complaints of returns which 
 give only the satisfaction of ordinary wants, so long as 
 others are increasing in importance and power ; and if 
 they wish well to their country they should not mind if 
 the rightful opportunities for a high place in the world's 
 progress is withheld from them, so long as their country, 
 by it, becomes independent in variety of industries. 
 
 In the first place, it is a trouble which is not confined to 
 one country only. Any country, however, is badly off 
 without a goodly number of patriotic citizens, but we 
 do not require patriotism from certain classes only. 
 We should not demand sacrifices from the great in- 
 dustrious, frugal, producing multitudes, and relieve those 
 who control capital and the national purse-strings. 
 
 Capital is permitted to gain whatever it may require 
 as agents in production, relieved from artificial impedi- 
 ments in order that its efforts may exceed the minimum. 
 We have an illustration in Canada's annual import of the 
 six and a half million dollars' worth of hides, cottons, and 
 sheep's wool freed from duty. Capital is thus favored, 
 that it may produce with a minimum of effort, at the 
 sacrifice of patriotic treatment toward the farmers against 
 whom these imports compete. Canadian national pride 
 was sacrificed by its government in furnishing the High 
 
I06 AMERICAN FARMS. 
 
 Commissioner's a costly establishment in London, with 
 English fabrics instead of Canadian. What a splendid 
 chance was thus lost for an exhibition of patriotic feeling 
 and for the advertisement of the country's superior 
 productions ! 
 
 When the Postmaster-General requires a quantity of 
 wool serge for postmen's uniforms, as was lately the case 
 in Canada, the order goes to a foreign country, although 
 the farmers aje all, more or less, depending on the suc- 
 cessful production of the raw material from which such 
 goods are fabricated, and the cloth manufacturers are 
 grumbling on account of lack of orders. 
 
 Protection — more correctly " aggression " — is the dead- 
 ly enemy of our farmers ; for, while the general tenden- 
 cies are for monopoly to absorb the rural population, a 
 protective policy, such as we now have, derives its power 
 to assist monopoly, not from the planets, not from the 
 mountains of the moon, but from the pockets of the 
 farmers. 
 
 Protection narrows down, to the farmer, the margin of 
 profit between effort and result. Thus his opportunities 
 for progress are not only limited, but are actually being 
 reduced to nothing. The results are, that the class who, 
 in the early days of America's history, laid the founda- 
 tion for its present greatness, are in the future to be 
 deprived of the necessary opportunities for economic 
 power, for political influence, for the gain of knowledge, 
 for culture, for the exercise of the higher faculties 
 through which progress is possible. There can be no 
 escape from this conclusion, for reports and proofs come 
 to us from all parties and from all quarters, that the 
 farmers of America are becoming hopelessly involved 
 in financial ruin. 
 
PROTECT/ON A DEADLY ENEMY. lO/ 
 
 Who now control all our great financial schemes, with 
 their far-reaching social and political consequences, but 
 the men who are secured a profit in their undertakings 
 by government at the expense of such as the farmer? 
 Who hold the balance of power in our legislation, but 
 the men who are secured an abundant reward for their 
 efforts at the expense of those situated as the farmer ? 
 Who are able to give to their families the shelter and 
 luxuries of f 100,000 homes, and to their children the 
 advantage of travel and European education, better than 
 those who are subsidized by government, at the expense 
 of those situated as the farmer ? Who sit in higher seats, 
 and in finer churches, and in more costly robes, than 
 those who are permitted to carry on a practice of legal- 
 ized brigandage against the pockets of such as our 
 farmers ? Who travel up and down our valleys, occupy- 
 ing our palace and first-class cars, fill our best hotels, to 
 a greater extent, than the men who are sanctioned by 
 government, in effecting combinations for systematic 
 raids on the farmers' narrow incomes ? 
 
 The result of protection is to destroy the efficacy of 
 the natural powers of soil and climate ; to counteract 
 the rich returns of the earth, and dwarf the efforts of 
 men ; to render their actions futile ; to exact the utmost 
 from the capacity of the producing forces, and to with- 
 hold from them their natural powers as mediums for the 
 satisfaction of wants. It is to pauperize man in the 
 midst of his abundance ; it is for man to see his over- 
 flowing granaries, without power to gain for him one 
 step forward in command of the progress to which he is 
 naturally entitled ; it is for him to witness the magnitude 
 of his flocks and herds, without the ability to cancel the 
 demands of the usurer and the tax-gatherer ; it is, in fact, 
 
I08 AMERICAN FARMS. 
 
 a force in the direction of barbarism, whereas freedom 
 from its thraldom of attendant evils would allow high 
 measures of progress and development. 
 
 Protection causes our rich valley farms to be little 
 more powerful in yielding independence to the owners, 
 than barren hill-tops would yield with freedom. It makes 
 our mountain farms powerless to give to their owners 
 command of the mediums for progress of scarcely any 
 kind ; it is to shackle the farmers, from decade to decade, 
 to nothing but rounds of drudgery, in order that they 
 may be permitted merely to exist. 
 
 To meet our argument, some of the supporters of pro- 
 tective legislation contend that mankind progresses in 
 civilization much faster where they have a great deal to 
 contend against. They will say that, where natural con- 
 ditions are too favorable, there the people will be 
 indolent, shiftless, and improvident ; that obstructions 
 remedy all this ; yet we find that, where the obstructions 
 have been great, there mankind remains the same, making 
 no perceptible progress through ages. 
 
 The school which finds obstructions so beneficial for 
 the development of the mass is not the least disturbed 
 at the prospect of easy and abundant incomes for its 
 own members. They have no fear for the consequences 
 to their families on account of the thousands guaranteed 
 to them by government, for which they give nothing in 
 return. 
 
 Protection has been very properly designated Sisy- 
 phism, from the fact that its effects are similar to those 
 endured by the robber Sisyphus of fabulous history, who 
 was punished by being required to roll a huge stone to 
 the top of a hill, which stone constantly returned, con- 
 signing him to perpetual labor. 
 
PROTECTION A DEADLY ENEMY. IO9 
 
 Protection to the farmer of America is Sisyphism at 
 each turn. In his efforts in production every means 
 necessary for its accomplishment is loaded with Sisy- 
 phism. Protection stands between his productions and 
 those who desire them. It is a black, unrelenting wall, 
 over which only professional smugglers and trained 
 monopolists climb with safety. It puts a friction on 
 every line of transportation. It stands ready to load 
 with Sisyphism every attempt made by the farmer to 
 gain a share in the productions of other lands, for the 
 use of himself and family. It is a foe which robs the 
 farmer of three dollars through taxes, for the benefit of 
 monopolists and political parasites, to one for the neces- 
 sary service of the country. It is, indeed, Sisyphism, 
 on every hand ; an endless slavery to its chief victim^ 
 the farmers of America. 
 
CHAPTER V. 
 
 TRUSTS, COMBINES, ETC. 
 
 A RELIABLE Statistical expert recently published the 
 statement that, in the United States alone, the capacity 
 for manufacturing the principal articles of production is 
 equal to the requirements of two hundred and sixty 
 millions of people instead of sixty millions. As the 
 country has little foreign market for her manufactures, 
 the results are: idle blast furnaces, closed-down mills, 
 restricted production, extensive strikes, frequently 
 throwing vast numbers out of employment ; thus causing 
 losses and expenses, which are thrown upon the people 
 in various ways. 
 
 That manufacturers, as well as undertakers of some 
 other great enterprises, may be safe from pressure upon 
 the profits of their investment because of their idle 
 works, and from competition, or that the returns may be 
 commensurate with their idea of what the public should 
 pay for their services, various systems are brought into 
 play, familiarly known by the names of trusts, combines, 
 and associations. 
 
 At the present time, huge trusts — in other words, 
 enormous combinations of monopolies — are the prevail- 
 ing methods of controlling production and profits. A de- 
 scription of the mode of forming these is interesting. 
 
 It is resolved by the great leading firms in a specified 
 industry to put themselves in a position to secure its 
 
TRUSTS, COMBINES, ETC. Ill 
 
 success, claiming, of course, all for the public benefit. 
 The formation of a trust is determined upon by the most 
 powerful of the industry. These give notice of their 
 decision to all engaged in this particular branch of busi- 
 ness. The terms and stipulations are often of very 
 objectionable character ; to the smaller concerns, very 
 unfair and oppressive. But rather than suffer the annoy- 
 ance of continuous competition by more powerful rivals, 
 they yield and become subject to it. Those who refuse 
 to enter the grand union are squeezed out of existence ; 
 witness the " frozen out " sugar refiners, oil operators, 
 meat dealers, etc. 
 
 One of the first effects of these combinations is to 
 destroy all healthy markets for the sale of raw material. 
 Only one appears as purchaser, whereas, before the 
 union, many were appearing. The result is disastrous 
 to those who must market raw materials, unless the 
 owners of these raw materials are also in a similar 
 combination. 
 
 The Butchers' National Convention in Philadelphia 
 recently denounced the Western beef pool at Chicago as 
 "the most infamous tyranny that ever existed in the 
 United States. . . . We think also that the worst 
 combination in the country is the beef, pork, and adul- 
 terated lard packers. The prices of cattle to the pro- 
 ducer having gone down 50 per cent., and the price to 
 the consumer having increased, every single dollar of 
 the difference has gone into the pocket of the com- 
 bination." 
 
 An instance of the power of trusts to control the price 
 of raw products occurred at the port of New York in Feb- 
 ruary of that year (1888). A cargo of 1,200 tons of raw 
 Manilla sugar arrived, and was offered at auction — the 
 
112 AMERICAN FARMS. 
 
 usual way of disposal. There was just one bid for it, and 
 this bid secured it at 4J cents per pound. About four weeks 
 previous to this sale, or before the sugar trust had begun 
 to show its power, a similar cargo, almost a duplicate, 
 was sold under competition at a,\ cents per pound. This 
 was a matter of about ^15,000, or thereabout, on a single 
 cargo, for the benefit of the trust. Meanwhile the re- 
 fined article, which had been selling for 6 cents per 
 pound, was advanced to 'j\ cents or to 8^ cents. From 
 these data we gather that the trust realized on this single 
 transaction over $100,000, through restricting compe- 
 tition, on purchase of raw material, and the sale of the 
 refined article. 
 
 The power of the trust, or in fact any monopoly or 
 capital power over smaller competitors, was well exem- 
 plified in the expose before the House Committee at 
 Washington last winter, as to the character of the trans- 
 actions of the Standard Oil Company as a competitor. 
 It was found that the Pennsylvania Railroad gave the 
 Standard and affiliated companies a rebate on crude 
 oil of 49 cents per barrel in transportation charges 
 from one field, and 51 cents from another. The rail- 
 road also gave the Standard 22^ cents per barrel on all 
 oils shipped by all people not affiliated with the Stand- 
 ard. The rates of freight were $1.45 to the public and 
 80 cents to the Standard. State Senator Lewis Emery, 
 of Bedford, testified to the effect that the independent 
 refineries had been driven from the field by reason of 
 the rebates allowed the Standard. Representative 
 Breckenridge thought that the amount of rebates given 
 to the Standard amounted in the aggregate to over 
 $100,000,000. Had the railways treated all shippers 
 alike, those shippers would now have a larger income 
 
TRUSTS, COMBINES, ETC. II3 
 
 by fifteen to twenty millions of dollars annually than 
 they now enjoy. 
 
 Advantages similar to those of the Standard over 
 their competitors are being secured all down through 
 our manufacturing and commercial enterprises. Not 
 long since a certain line of manufacture was not paying 
 the concerns interested profits which satisfied them. A 
 combine was proposed. The " big fish " of the industry 
 refused to consent to an arrangement for an advance, 
 unless he was allowed two cents per dozen, or about 10 
 per cent, on sales of the article by all the parties to the 
 proposed arrangement, until he received ten thousand 
 dollars out of their profits. The combine was formed ; 
 he received his 20 per-cent. advance on his own produc- 
 tion, and finally his ten thousand dollars from the others. 
 Such arrangements are being continually entered into 
 and executed all over America, under shelter of the 
 country's laws, whenever such sheltering is required. 
 
 Trusts and combines place the consumer at the mercy 
 of the monopolist, who is empowered to dictate his own 
 terms. If the consumer will but open his eyes, he will 
 see that in many important industries competition has 
 been virtually destroyed. It was stated not long since 
 by the New York Times that the Stair Oil-Cloth Associa- 
 tion of the United States, a pool of, manufacturers, had 
 made the one who violates the terms of the combine 
 liable to a fine of $500 : no customer being allowed to 
 undersell stipulated prices, while they reserve the right 
 to advance prices at any time. 
 
 Very similar to the action of the Oil-Cloth Association 
 has been that of the only lock-manufacturing company 
 of Canada. Sheltered behind a thirty-five-cent protec- 
 tion, it has put in force a requirement that all jobbers 
 
1 14 AMERICAN FARMS. 
 
 who purchasing from it must sell no lower than a certain 
 stipulated price. The result has been that it has not 
 only pocketed at least twenty-five per cent, above free- 
 trade prices, but has, at the same time, compelled its 
 customers to exact combination prices from all con- 
 sumers. These are only a few illustrations of a wide- 
 spread evil.' 
 
 The Montreal Star (Protectionist), speaking of com- 
 bines in Canada, says : " They are nothing less than a 
 scandalous abuse of the privilege of protection from 
 foreign competition granted to Canadian manufacturers." 
 
 Adam Smith was not far from correct when he said : 
 " The price of monopoly is upon every occasion the 
 highest which can be got ; . . . the highest which can be 
 squeezed out of the buyers." 
 
 At a recent session of the legislature at Albany, New 
 York, the Committee on Trusts gave a very good descrip- 
 tion of the character of the average combine. " How- 
 ever different the influences which give rise to these 
 combinations may be, the main purpose, management, 
 and effect of all upon the public is the same, to wit : the 
 aggregation of capital, the power of controlling the manu- 
 facture and output of various necessary combinations, 
 the acquisition or destruction of competitive properties — 
 all leading to the final and conclusive purpose of annihi- 
 lating competition, and enabling the combinations to fix 
 the price at which they would purchase the raw material 
 from the producer, and at which they would sell the 
 
 ' " All the Western pottery manufacturers, with a single exception, 
 have entered into an agreement to maintain prices under bonds of 
 $1,200 each. . . . The greater portion of the pottery industries in 
 the United States are represented in the combination." — Iron Age, 
 item, Oct. 10, 1889. 
 
TSUSTS, COMBINES, ETC. I15 
 
 refined product to the consumer. In any event, the 
 public at each end of the industry — the producer and 
 consumer — is, and is intended to be, in a certain sense, 
 at the mercy of the syndicate, combination, or trust." ' 
 
 ' To evade the laws which have been recently passed aiming at the 
 suppression of trusts, these organizations are merging into huge 
 joint-stock associations, with the same purposes in view as the trusts 
 — namely, to control both demand and supply. 
 
BOOK IV. 
 
 IMPOTENCE OF THE REMEDIES PROPOSED, AND THE 
 ERRONEOUS REASONS ASCRIBED FOR THE DIFFI- 
 CULTIES NOW OVERTAKING THE FARMERS OF 
 AMERICA. 
 
 What man is free to practise or not, is that association with his 
 fellow-men which, within certain limits, increases his powers and 
 enables him to perform prodigies. But carry this association to ex- 
 tremes, let no limit be assigned to its action, let it be developed and 
 applied without measure and without consideration, and where does 
 it end — in law or in communism ? — Courtois. 
 
CHAPTER I. 
 
 DOES PROTECTION PROTECT THE FARMER? 
 
 The admitted decline of agriculture, especially in the 
 most protected countries, gives pretty conclusive evi- 
 dence that nothing has been done for it by forcing the 
 growth of other industries at its expense. Notwithstand- 
 ing this, it has been, and still continues to be, the pros- 
 pect of indirect benefit to farmers sooner or later, which 
 has tempted, and still continues to tempt, many commu- 
 nities to submit to laws which promise this result. 
 
 While natural laws of competition govern the produc- 
 tion and exchange value of farm produce, the tendency 
 is to make the consumer of farm produce, in almost 
 any locality, independent of the local producer of such 
 products. The tendency of the present day — there has 
 always been a tendency — is in the direction of giving the 
 consumer the benefit of this advantage much faster than 
 the producer could gain by the growth of forced indus- 
 tries. The assumption is borne out by all facts bearing 
 on the history of the subject. The conclusion follows, 
 that protection, to be consistent, cannot be a temporary 
 national policy. It must either grant equal privileges all 
 round, which would be absurd, since it would be the 
 people granting privileges to themselves out of their own 
 pockets, or, after it has built up certain industries to the 
 ruin of agriculture, it must then turn round and build 
 
 119 
 
120 AMERICAN FARMS. 
 
 up agriculture at the expense of other industries. It 
 must either do this, or it must be decided that a country 
 may be as well off without prosperous husbandmen as 
 with them — a position which it will hardly do to 
 assume. 
 
 Furthermore, protection, to be fair, and especially to 
 the farmers, should be extremely local in its operations. 
 Each protective unit should be very small. This was the 
 idea of General Hancock, though it is evidently true he 
 lost popularity by its propagation. A protective line 
 drawn around North America might serve the protective 
 requirements of the carpet, rubber, paper, glass, sugar, 
 and a host of other manufacturing industries. But what 
 •would it do to protect the fruit, the cattle, the sheep, the 
 horses, and many other productions of the farm ? The 
 half-dozen concerns that may govern a line of manufac- 
 ture may easily form combinations to govern the prices 
 of their commodities, but not so the farmer. 
 
 To serve the protective purpose of the fruit raisers of 
 New York, they must be protected from the fruit indus- 
 tries of Michigan ; the cattle raisers of New England 
 and the Maritime Provinces from Texas, Illinois, and 
 the Northwest ; the grain grower of the East from the 
 grain grower of the West ; the potato producers of New 
 England from their rivals in the Maritime Provinces ; 
 the grain, butter, and cheese productions of the Maritime 
 Provinces from those of Ontario, Manitoba, and the 
 Western States ; and so on. 
 
 Protection for the purpose of building up varied indus- 
 tries, that the farmer might be eventually benefited, has 
 so far been a conspicuous failure in America. The 
 sacrifices which this class has been called upon to make 
 have never been made good, nor can they ever be. 
 
DOES PROTECTION PROTECT THE FARMER? 121 
 
 In fact, the admissions that are made by protectionists 
 as to the continued failure of the Eastern farmers on 
 account of Western competition, are a tacit acknowledg- 
 ment of the opinion that the manufacturers of the East 
 have not come to the aid of Eastern farmers, as yet, 
 though the manufacturers have been receiving aid from 
 the farmers for a century. 
 6 
 
CHAPTER II. 
 
 THE HOME MARKETS FURTHER CONSIDERED. 
 
 It is claimed for protective legislation, that by stimu- 
 lating the growth of home industries, and the creation of 
 home markets for the products of the soil, a stop is put 
 to the export of the extractive industries ' of the coun- 
 try. That a tremendous waste is continually going on in 
 the consumption of farm products, through their practical 
 annihilation, at least for the time, as agents of reproduc- 
 tion, is very apparent. The waste is taking place at 
 home, in every city of America. From all over the 
 Union food products find their way to the New York 
 market, are consumed, and the principal part of their 
 fertilizing properties, in the change, flows to the ocean. 
 Probably hundreds of tons of beef are transported from 
 the country to that city each week, and but a trifling part 
 finds its way back again to the country." 
 
 The products of the extractive industries are continu- 
 ally being shipped between nations, and protective legis- 
 lation is powerless to prevent it. Since Great Britain 
 adopted a free-trade policy, other countries have cease- 
 lessly poured into the ports of that country the products 
 
 ' Agriculture is not properly an extractive industry. 
 
 ^ The city of Brooklyn alone expends ninety thousand dollars annu- 
 ally in carrying off to the ocean the kitchen garbage, to say nothing of 
 what goes in the sewers. 
 
THE HOME MARKETS FURTHER CONSIDERED. I23 
 
 of their extractive industries. The United States, with a 
 policy, one of the objects of which has been to create 
 home markets for the products of the farm, sent to other 
 nations (principally Great Britain) during the six years, 
 1875— 1880, of *^he products of the farm $3,114,785,000, 
 and during the six following years, ending with 1886, 
 $3,453,323,000, or about 72 per cent, of the total exports 
 of the Republic. Under protective legislation there has 
 been no diminution of the volume of the substance of this 
 outflow, but, on the contrary, a vast increase. In i860 
 the proportion of United States exports other than manu- 
 factured goods was 83 per cent, of her total export ; in 
 1870, 87 percent., in 18S0 it rose to 88 per cent., or a total 
 volume of $685,961,000 ; 73 per cent, of the total in 1888. 
 In the revenue-tariff period, or in the ten years between 
 1850 and i860, the growth of home manufacturing indus- 
 tries reached 88 per cent., while in the extremely high- 
 tariff period, i860 to 1880, or in 20 years, the increase 
 was only 139 per cent. The export of manufactured 
 goods increased, in the low-tariff period just mentioned, 
 to the extent of 171 per cent., while in the twenty years 
 which followed, the increase was only 90 per cent. 
 Farther than this, we are not aware that the yearly 
 export of manufactured goods from the United States 
 has ever risen above $130,000,000. These facts have 
 special significance to the farmer, for they go to prove 
 that, with all that has been done to build up the nation 
 through the manufacturing industries, these industries 
 have done nothing to bring wealth from abroad. The 
 whole burden put upon consumers through inflated prices 
 of manufactures, has been borne by one class for the 
 benefit of another. And we must know that the farmer 
 has had to carry a good part of the load at every turn. 
 
124 AMERICAN FARMS. 
 
 The condition of the agricultural lands of New Eng- 
 land, notwithstanding the great development of its cities, 
 is very good proof that there is something wrong in the 
 home-market theory. 
 
 The true home-market theory for the farmer is in the 
 independence, through natural laws, of each little rural 
 home. By allowing these to be the base of economic 
 action, a home market is always secured. Manufactures 
 will spring up as they are required. The productions of 
 the farm will be the raw material of the home manu- 
 facturer. Then our manufactures will be of natural 
 development, and these will exchange in foreign countries 
 for such goods as are the natural productions of those 
 countries. 
 
 This is the true division of labor, with a natural, a solid 
 base. How senseless it is to force foreign raw material 
 into our markets in order to give employment to our 
 artisans, when, without compulsion, artisans might be 
 fabricating our own raw materials for foreign countries. 
 By following the former course, our position is always 
 false ; by the latter it would be sound and enduring, 
 causing all classes to be ever more and more self- 
 sustaining. 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 
 TRUSTS FOR THE FARMERS. 
 
 There is quite a prevalent feeling among farmers 
 that, if trusts and combines are to be the order of the 
 future, the farmer may as well enjoy whatever benefits 
 can be derived from them ; that many lines of the 
 farmer's productions might well come into combination 
 to the farmer's advantage, such as the milk business, the 
 marketing of butter, and the like. Their opinion is this : 
 that the services of middlemen may be dispensed with, 
 prices made steady, and a profit from their industry al- 
 ways made secure, resulting in an advantage to the buyer 
 as well as to the seller. This, however, has been the 
 argument of all who are about entering the charmed 
 circle of the combine. It is desirable for all farmers to 
 give the character of the trust or combine a searching 
 examination, that they may know whether they may so 
 far countenance the principle of the combine as to de- 
 pend upon such means for benefiting themselves. The 
 indirect consequences, as well as the remote results, 
 should be well weighed. However just and honorable 
 may be the motives which prompt men to enter into an 
 association, the object of which is to make safe their 
 position in transactions with their fellow-men who may 
 not be placed in equally secure positions themselves, and 
 upon whom the means for the success of their enterprise 
 
 125 
 
126 AMERICAN FARMS. 
 
 must largely depend, it is a dangerous position to occupy. 
 As men gain power, they are apt to feel power ; and be- 
 come infused with the idea that power is safest with 
 them and may be increased with profit to all. If they 
 escape this themselves, there is always risk of their 
 associates becoming subject to this influence. 
 
 The nature of trusts and combines is to encourage the 
 impulse which seeks gain at the expense of others. This 
 is an impulse which, for many reasons, the rural classes 
 have a most decided interest in checking in every possi- 
 ble way. The effect of a trust that succeeds, is to crush 
 all who are not inclined to come under its manage- 
 ment. This is decidedly against the permanent welfare 
 of the masses engaged in agriculture. The trust also 
 forces terms upon the weakest members, and the weak 
 become subject to the strong ; a condition which the true 
 friend of the typical American farmer would avoid as 
 the danger of the future — real enthronement of wealth. 
 The trust causes business to pass over to the hands of 
 a directorate ; thus it brings the majority of its members 
 into a practical slavery. Its tendency is to stop the 
 growth of individuality. 
 
 Completeness, individuality, self-dependence, is the 
 ideal life which the country should stimulate — a state so 
 desirable for the really developed man. The growth of 
 sentiments and customs of a slavish character develops 
 slavery. It is necessary, that the rural classes may 
 retain their individuality, that they exercise it in all 
 their institutions. In the stimulating of this individual 
 development, there is the greatest actual bond of union. 
 " Throughout our solar system, harmony of movement — 
 interdependence — is a result of that local attraction 
 which preserves a perfect independence. So, too, is it 
 
TRUSTS FOR THE FARMERS. 12/ 
 
 with nations, the tendency toward peace and harmony 
 among them being in the ratio of their interdependence ; 
 that, in its turn, being the direct ratio of their indepen- 
 dence." ' Since liberty is the soul of independence — 
 power, so must a true interdependence know no slavish 
 bonds. Association, union, there should be among farm- 
 ers, but it should partake of no compulsory characteristics 
 calculated to weaken the springs of individual activity. 
 The trust, then, is not for the use of the farmer, though 
 we would not throttle it in the manner that some legis- 
 lators undertake to do. 
 
 Henry C. Carey, vol. iii., p. 464. 
 
CHAPTER IV. 
 
 PROTECTION AS IT REFERS TO AGRICULTURE IN 
 ENGLAND. 
 
 In Great Britain, the freemen, or small holders of the 
 land have been over-borne from time to time in one way 
 and another, until they have become about extinct as a 
 class. The great body of the farmers of England now 
 own no land, but they must depend upon the lords of 
 the manor for the privilege of tilling the soil, though not, 
 as once, obliged under all circumstances to accept 
 these lords' terms. 
 
 The agricultural lands of Great Britain are supposed 
 to support three classes — namely, the landlord, the capi- 
 talist farmer, and the farm laborer. When a bushel of 
 grain is raised in England, three parties must each have 
 a share in the profit. The chances for a share of this 
 profit to any one of these parties have very much les- 
 sened during the last fifty years. ' The chances for the 
 landlord to take this profit to himself have also very 
 much lessened in the same period. For many years, agri- 
 culture in the hands of the landlords was a monopoly ; 
 profits through laws which prevented foreign competi- 
 tion being secured to the landlord. These profits went 
 to the landlord because the labor market was glutted. 
 
 These conditions are all changed. Agriculture is not 
 now a monopoly in England ; and the laborer is much 
 
 128 
 
PROTECTION IN ENGLAND. 1 29 
 
 more independent of the landlord. Food supplies now 
 invade the markets of Great Britain, from the broad fields 
 of America, India, and the continent, at prices which 
 appal the home producer. But the landlord is the one 
 who looks upon this with the most concern. The cap- 
 italist farmer and the laborer are comparatively free to 
 escape to other occupations. 
 
 Fifty to one hundred years ago, the English farm and 
 English landlords were, as types, peculiar to England. 
 The American farm and the American farmer, as types, 
 were peculiar to America. Their relative conditions in 
 this respect have vastly changed, and with it another 
 striking change has come about. In those days land- 
 lordism in England was all that could be desired by the 
 English landlord, and the landless English farmers, who 
 were able to emigrate, were becoming the typical farmers 
 of America. To-day the English capitalist invests his 
 money in American land to become a competitive agri- 
 culturist, while the average emigrant is not attracted to 
 the land, but comes to swell the other occupations. Al- 
 though such a large portion of our interests are agricul- 
 tural, not more than one to fifteen come as agriculturists.' 
 
 Why these relative changes ? Are we not insidiously 
 bringing upon the small farmers of America what was 
 done to them in England in past times by force ? 
 
 Adam Smith's idea that agriculture, as he saw it in 
 England, was the best of industries, because it supported 
 three classes, was calculated to create an impression 
 hardly correct as an axiom of political economy. 
 
 Intrinsically great as the industry undoubtedly is, it is 
 not able to support an idle class, and when openly forced 
 
 ' In 1886, of 117,546 males immigrating into the United States, 
 only 20,528 came as farmers. 
 6* 
 
I30 AMERICAN FARMS. 
 
 to do SO, as in past days in England, it must have been at 
 the expense of others. 
 
 In the days of monopoly in English agriculture the 
 lands of England assumed a value which they could not 
 maintain. Consequently, in comparing the condition of 
 agriculture there now with former periods and with other 
 countries, we must conclude that in England a more 
 normal condition, even under a chronic disorder, is being 
 reached for a time ; while in America an abnormal condi- 
 tion increases, while a chronic disorder is being produced. 
 
 When was the English farmer in a more miserable con- 
 dition than just prior to the repeal of the corn laws ? 
 Lardner's Annual Retrospect, of 1831, stated that the 
 most interesting topic touched upon in the king's speech, 
 was that contained in the paragraph which informed Par- 
 liament that " the export of British produce and manu- 
 factures in the last year had exceeded that of any former 
 year." It lamented that " notwithstanding this indication 
 of active commerce, distress should prevail among the 
 agricultural and manufacturing classes in some parts of 
 the United Kingdom." Says our authority ' : " The 
 country gentlemen brought reports to Parliament of 
 the sufferings among the tenantry and laborers, that 
 rents could not be paid, and poor-rates had absorbed 
 the profits of the farmers. One petition to Parliament, 
 from Bedfordshire, stated that the laborers were receiv- 
 ing wages which gave them barely the means of pro- 
 tracting a cheerless existence, deprived of all the comforts 
 and almost all the necessaries of life ; that there are 
 parishes in the country purely agricultural, where fifty 
 to ninety able-bodied men, destitute of other work, 
 are employed by the parishes, and receiving four shil- 
 
 ' The Financial Reformer, of Liverpool. 
 
PROTECTION IN ENGLAND. 13 1 
 
 lings a week, and that no blame attaches to the farmers, 
 who are unable to afford more." In Berkshire "the 
 weekly payment to able-bodied men who could find 
 employment is stated as being in some places so low as 
 two shillings and sixpence." A Buckingham petition in- 
 formed Parliament that " many persons commit depreda- 
 tions and misdemeanors to get into prison, thus to 
 preserve themselves from lingering starvation " ; that 
 "many have contracted disorders by eating the flesh 
 of animals that die naturally, and other unwholesome 
 food." The Bishop of Bath and Wells, in presenting 
 one from Frome, in Somersetshire, said, in support of it : 
 "I have been a witness to the most afflicting distress, 
 which I could not, if I would, describe." 
 
 Sir James Caird, a very high authority on these mat- 
 ters, recently stated before a committee in England 
 that the spendable income from the landed interests 
 fell off $114,000,000 in 1885. And yet it is evident 
 that the mere day laborer was in no such deplora- 
 ble condition in 1885, as is related of sixty years ago in 
 the foregoing paragraph. Evidences clearly indicate 
 that the land-owner, and tenant paying rents upon a 
 basis of former values, are those of the landed interests 
 which are feeling the depression most. 
 
 Finally, we arrive at the conclusion that, in all our com- 
 parisons as to the condition of agriculture in England to- 
 day with former times and with other countries, we should 
 keep the fact well in view that its congested state is due 
 to the evil results of protection in the past, and a bad 
 system of land-holding opposed to the best use of land. 
 
 Germany, France, and Italy, all having high protective 
 tariffs, are each contending with most perplexing agri- 
 cultural difficulties. 
 
CHAPTER V. 
 
 AS TO FRUGALITY. 
 
 Not a few, even of farmers themselves, attribute the 
 disease, which they have to admit is settling itself upon 
 agriculture in America, or upon the economic affairs of 
 those who pursue it, to their habits of expensive living. 
 For a cure they demand frugality. This demand may, 
 in a sense, be reasonable ; but those who make it must 
 concede to the view that they ask cure for a disease 
 which is growing upon other classes even more than 
 upon the farmers. Then, why are the agriculturists less 
 able to bear up under it than other classes ? 
 
 It may well be claimed that the consumption of the 
 income of the husbandman is as rational as that of any 
 of his contemporaries. Let one become familiar with 
 the expenditures and habits of the bulk of the manufac- 
 turing and commercial classes, and they will be con- 
 vinced that these are far more irrational in such respects. 
 In fact, the farmer, of all men, feels very sensibly the 
 consequences of any injudicious use of his means. The 
 farmer also faces, as no one else, the responsibility 
 of his folly. It can rarely be thrown upon others, as 
 in the more commercial, or even professional, occupa- 
 tions. Governments may be extravagant, and their sup- 
 porters commend them for it, claiming that the country so 
 represented is made to appear more important and influ- 
 
AS TO FRUGALITY. 1 33 
 
 ential through these expenditures ; but the people pay 
 for them. The patent-medicine vender spends his hun- 
 dreds of thousands in advertising, for the purpose of 
 creating an interest in his compounds. The more con- 
 spicuous for costliness these outlays, the better they pay ; 
 but the consumer foots the bill. The merchant spends 
 his thousands upon plate-glass windows for his store, be- 
 cause it pays ; but the customers at his store pay the 
 bill. The clerk and the commercial traveller must dress 
 well, and the latter must visit the best hotels ; and the 
 consumers of the goods he sells must eventually settle 
 the bill. We can safely say, that whatever may be the evil 
 of a too liberal use of income, such habits have not been 
 engendered within the ranks of the farmers, but come 
 from without. 
 
 But is there justice in the growing inability of farmers 
 to equal others in a liberal consumption ? Probably not 
 one farmer in a hundred, no, not one in a thousand, is 
 consuming as liberally as we desire that he should, 
 though perhaps less rationally. It is a calamity for a 
 class to lose its power to consume. Being continually 
 so situated, it must relapse into slavery of some kind. 
 The man who is in bondage to another, consumes merely 
 that he may produce. The one who can only consume 
 what barely suffices for an existence, is a slave to his 
 necessities. As man gets beyond this, and can become 
 victor over nature, he becomes free. The greater the con- 
 sumption, provided it be complete, the more advanced the 
 individual, the more rational, the expansion of all the en- 
 dowments with which God has been pleased to favor him. 
 
 No ! instead of less consumption for the farmer of 
 America, to allow him more should be the aim of all 
 who would guide his destinies to a happy issue. 
 
CHAPTER VI. 
 
 HENRY GEORGE'S REMEDY. 
 
 The undoubted tendency of the time toward larger 
 farms, and the control of land by men of capital, and the 
 increase in the number of farms owned by others than 
 the occupiers, is evidently an indication that capital has, 
 in some way, gained an ascendency over the typical 
 American farmers. That the greater number of farms 
 becoming subject to the landlord are those of the 
 quite small areas, also goes to prove that the small land 
 proprietors are giving up the contest more rapidly than 
 any others. 
 
 Yet, notwithstanding all this, there is nothing in the 
 nature of the conditions now existing to give a grain of 
 weight to the conclusion, that the destruction of land 
 values to the individual would, in any way, give relief 
 to the small land proprietor. That fhe large farm is 
 growing larger by additions to its area of the small farms 
 about it, only shows that the larger farm is, in some 
 way, better circumstanced to hold its own in the contest 
 for gain. 
 
 The causes which have brought the small farms into 
 the hands of the capitalists are various, but the weight 
 of mortgage-debt has been the final agent 'in the ma- 
 jority of cases. The once fortunate owners of such 
 farms were, at the first, benefited by small loans from 
 
 134 
 
HENRY GEORGE'S REMEDY. 1 35 
 
 the usurer, but through their struggle to keep on with 
 their enterprises, and to meet the demands of society- 
 levied upon them, their debts were increased, interest 
 ceased to be paid, and finally the mortgagee took them 
 over to save his money. In the vast majority of cases 
 to-day the owners of tenanted farms would gladly sell 
 them off at a good discount on the amounts which they 
 have invested in them. They have no desire to be land- 
 lords, and it has only been through the failure of the 
 mortgageors that they have become so possessed with 
 land. 
 
 The tendency of the present time in America is to de- 
 stroy love for country life — to denude the farmer of 
 the sentiments that should impel him to hand down to 
 his own posterity, intact, the lands of his forefathers, 
 with all their valued associations. The single tax is cal- 
 culated to give greater impetus to this most undesirable 
 tendency. It is to increase this tendency with those 
 who engage in rural pursuits, for them to look upon 
 the farm as only a great factory for material purppses, 
 and material purposes only. The farms subjected to it 
 would become more and more the possession of those 
 who would look upon them only as the medium through 
 which to gain riches. Its adoption would be but to 
 give more stimulus to a tendency which Mr. George 
 dilates upon as an evil of great proportions already — 
 "bonanza farming." "These machine- worked 'grain 
 factories ' of our Great Republic of the New World are 
 doing just what was done by the slave-worked lati- 
 fundia of the Roman world. Here, they prevent, where 
 there, they destroyed, ' the crop of men.' " ' The whole- 
 sale system of agriculture, gathering more and more 
 ' ' " The Land Question,'' p. 59. 
 
136 AMERICAN FARMS. 
 
 force in America, is something far more to be feared 
 than any danger from landlordism. Under it are being 
 destroyed our " best crops of men " — our small land pro- 
 prietors, — a trouble that would not abate one iota under 
 the single-tax regime. 
 
 Mr. George's remedy would relieve the " bonanza fac- 
 tories " of farm produce in the great West from taxes, 
 for he says : " To put taxation solely upon land values 
 would shift the weight of taxation from the sparsely set- 
 tled agricultural districts to those populous centres where 
 land has a real and a high value. As it would destroy 
 the speculative value of land, the result would be that 
 many farmers would have no taxes at all to pay ; for, no 
 matter what might be the value of his improvements, no 
 farmer would have more taxes to pay than could be col- 
 lected from unimproved land equal to his own in quality 
 and situation." 
 
 On the other hand, the advocates of the single-tax 
 claim that one of their aims is to make the great unoccu- 
 pied lands in the hands of the capitalists cheap by taxing 
 them, in order that men of small means may obtain them. 
 I think the result would be more likely in the direc- 
 tion of making them bonanza agricultural estates, and 
 thus increase competition in agriculture. 
 
 The single-tax theory abounds with contradictions, but 
 at best it has nothing to offer for the relief of the small 
 farmer. The great aim of the single-tax advocate is to 
 bring about a greater equality in the distribution of wealth 
 among men. It might have a levelling tendency in some 
 instances, but in others it would have just the opposite 
 effect. We will suppose the case of two farms of equal 
 size and natural value, and each paying the same heavy 
 tax : the owner of the one having capital to procure 
 
HENRY GEORGE'S REMEDY. 1 37 
 
 the best of machinery, drains for his lands, trees for his 
 orchards, and every article required, at the lowest price 
 at which they could be purchased ; the other having 
 none of these advahtages. Under such conditions the 
 latter would be driven to the wall. Under such a tax 
 it would be only men of capital who could carry on pro- 
 duction. Mr. George's remedies, from any point of 
 view, would only make matters worse for the small 
 farmer.' 
 
 ' See Book V., Chapter II., on " The Single Tax." 
 
BOOK V. 
 
 TAXATION. 
 
 With high-tariff men, I am for promoting American industry ; 
 and with them, I am for bringing the producer and consumer as near 
 together as practicable. Nevertheless, I am an absolute Free-Trader. 
 I would have no custom-house on the face of the earth. Never will 
 government be administered honestly and frugally until the cost of 
 administering it is paid by direct taxation. And never will govern- 
 ment be confined within its proper limits, until its sole office shall be 
 to protect persons and property. — Gerrit Smith. 
 
CHAPTER I. 
 
 TAXATION IN GENERAL. 
 
 Taxation of some sort and degree is a necessity 
 of civilized life, and it should be the desire of every 
 intelligent citizen to contribute something to meet the 
 needs of organized society. Yet, on the whole, it must 
 be considered one of the social burdens, and should be 
 limited in its extent to the actual requirements of the 
 state. 
 
 Excessive taxation is evidently a very great evil, 
 though it has been strangely enough urged, by men high 
 in legislative positions, that through it is " the only 
 gateway to prosperity." Taxation of this sort, says the 
 wise economist, is " a kind of suicide," however laid ; 
 while it is little less than criminal, when clumsily or in- 
 equitably drawn from the masses ; for its continuance 
 must finally end in the ruin of many whose incomes are 
 not sufficient to bear any added strain. 
 
 The rapidity with which taxation has rolled up against 
 the people of America during the last forty years, or 
 since the farmers began to lose their political power, is 
 enough to startle one when he takes courage to face the 
 figures which tell the story. In 1840, the federal treas- 
 ury of the United States took from the pockets of the 
 people f 1.25 per capita ; in 1888, $5.57 per capita ; or, 
 for a family of five in 1840, $6.25 ; in 1888, $27.85 ; an 
 
 141 
 
142 AMERICAN FARMS. 
 
 increase of over 400 per cent, in one department of 
 taxation.' 
 
 In Canada, federal taxation has grown in volume 
 125 per cent, during the last twenty years, while the 
 population has not increased 50 per cent. 
 
 Mr. Edward Atkinson estimates the total taxation of 
 the Union for 1880, viz., federal. State, and municipal, at 
 $14 per capita, or $70 for the family of five, and the 
 savings of the people at $18 per capita. In Canada, the 
 proportions are probably about the same. These figures, 
 which we presume are near correct, show the somewhat 
 alarming proportion taxation bears to actual savings, 
 and how absolutely necessary it is that such a tax be put 
 upon the right shoulders. According to Mr. Atkinson, 
 the yearly net savings of the people would be nearly its 
 present amount, but for these taxes. The incidence of 
 taxation, in city as well as country municipality, and 
 between the classes universally, becomes a serious one. 
 Are not the majority of our agriculturists groaning 
 beneath their unequal burdens ? 
 
 There is hardly a doubt that such impositions did 
 much to assist in bringing about the ruin of the ancient 
 civilizations. And we are not without evidences to 
 show that the peasant classes in those times were the 
 bearers of the principal part of a load which was seldom 
 any thing but crushing. Geikie, in his " Life of Christ,"- 
 speaks of the exhaustion of Palestine through the op- 
 pression of the Romans " falling with special weight on 
 an agricultural people like the Jews " ; Gibbon, in his 
 
 ' The late civil war should not be held accountable for the weight 
 of taxes twenty-three years after its close. From 1789 to 1830, with 
 the burden of the expenses of two wars resting upon the United 
 States, the tax per capita was less than $1.75 annually. But, whatof 
 Canada's federal tax in the year 1889, of $5.66 per capita, without 
 any disastrous war on which to throw the odium ? 
 
V4>K4^TI0N^ IN GE^^^R^. - 1 43 
 
 "Downfall of the¥o4'6*ilSt^lF'of the "intolerable 
 weight of taxes attached to the land." How full of 
 warning for all ages are the words of Lactantius, the 
 Latin rhetorician, when referring in this particular to the 
 fall of the Roman Empire. " Thanks to the multitude of 
 functionaries, there were more tax-consumers in the 
 empire than tax-payers,' so that the cultivator was ruined 
 by the exactions to which he was exposed. Fields were 
 deserted, and lands once tilled were abandoned, till they 
 lapsed again into the forest." Another writer says that 
 " the treasury was a robbery which completed the fall of 
 the Roman Empire." 
 
 In the years in which the lands of Great Britain were 
 passing from the control of the small landholders, the 
 burden of taxation rested upon land. Indeed, we ven- 
 ture the assertion, that all through the ages since the 
 organization of society, the principal state burdens have 
 in some way been thrown upon the tillers of the soil 
 whenever they could be so applied. In our time a 
 piteous wail comes ever and anon from the tax-ridden 
 peasants of Italy, France, and Germany. Of this unfor- 
 tunate class in Russia, " a former resident " writes : 
 
 " The peasants are financially ruined ; the worst off 
 are dying, literally dying, of hunger, while others have 
 scarcely any thing to eat, or to drink, or the where- 
 withal to protect their bodies from the cold, and 
 yet their last cow that fed the children, innocent of 
 mother's milk, is distrained for taxes, and they them- 
 selves flogged in order to extract from them the money 
 
 ' The central government at Washington embraces, in the Internal 
 Revenue, Post-office, and other departments under its control, 130,000 
 officials, and its numbers are constantly increasing. If the number of 
 officials multiply in Canada for the next fifty years as they have during 
 the last twenty, they will comprise a body of tax-consumers not much 
 fewer than the tax-payers. 
 
144 AMERICAN FARMS. 
 
 requisite to keep the administrative machine in motion. 
 Oh, Father of Compassion ! is this the only gateway to 
 prosperity ? " 
 
 After the masses of the ruralists have once begun to 
 lose their relative power, it has only been when the lands 
 have become the property of a monopoly of some kind or 
 other that the land-holding classes have been able to 
 dictate terms. 
 
 " The progress of a community toward wealth and 
 power being in the direct ratio of the combination of 
 action among the people of whom it is composed ; it 
 follows that the advance towards both must be in the 
 ratio in which they are enabled to dispense with the 
 services of the politician, the soldier, the owner of slaves, 
 and the trader — of that class which lives by virtue of the 
 simple act of appropriation. Every movement, however, 
 in that direction, looking necessarily to a diminution in 
 the power of the latter, they are all — soldier, trader, and 
 politician — found uniformly banded together for the 
 subjugation of the people ; as was seen in Athens and in 
 Rome, and as may now be seen in all the countries of 
 Europe and America. The history of the world is but a 
 record of the attempts of the few to tax the many, and 
 those of the many to escape taxation ; and the tendency 
 of society to assume a natural and stable form is in the 
 precise ratio of the success of this latter class — a success, 
 however slowly and tediously accomplished, because of 
 the power of those who live by appropriation to come 
 together in towns and cities, while they who contribute 
 to their revenues are scattered throughout the country." ' 
 
 ' This, from the pen of Henry C. Carey (" Social Science," p. 235), 
 applies to America to-day even better than when it was written, — 
 thirty years ago. 
 
CHAPTER II. 
 
 THE SINGLE TAX. 
 
 We are brought again to a consideration of the agi- 
 tation now going on, to have all taxes for public revenue 
 merged into one upon land only. It has already assumed 
 proportions which should cause the utmost concern to 
 the agricultural classes. Started principally in the inter- 
 est of the laboring classes, years ago in Europe, and 
 more recently and perhaps more prominently by Mr. 
 Henry George in America, it is now growing in favor, we 
 have to admit, with most city classes. And, even leading 
 publicists and respectable influential journals are giving 
 it their approval. 
 
 The single-tax advocate, makes a point of contending 
 that so nearly is direct taxation now thrown upon real 
 estate, that it would be but taking a short step farther to 
 make it bear the whole. They are right, in so far as 
 America is concerned, in claiming that the chief burden 
 of direct taxation bears upon this class of property. 
 
 It is admitted by most observers that real estate is sure 
 to be taxed, while personal property is sure to escape. 
 The estimate recently made of personal property which 
 is escaping taxation in the State of New York, runs up to 
 the fine figure of $2,500,000,000. Mr. Thomas G. Shear- 
 man, makes the statement that between i860 and 1880, 
 the assessed value of real estate in the United States, 
 7 145 
 
146 AMERICAN FARMS. 
 
 increased from $4,564,000,000 to $10,470,000,000, or an 
 increase of 130 per cent. ; while the increase in the 
 assessed value of personal property increased from 
 $2,015,000,000 to $2,870,000,000, or an increase of only 
 43 per cent. It must be borne in mind, in these com- 
 parisons, that personality in the aggregate, as it is valued 
 in exchange, is augmenting at much the faster rate. 
 
 The situation appears serious for our farmers, when it 
 is realized that the classes which may be likely to favor 
 this system of taxation are a growing majority of the 
 voters of America. Mr. George intimates his satisfaction 
 on this score in his chapter on " The American Farmer," 
 in " Social Problems." It is now proposed to have the 
 adoption of this mode of taxation secured for all local 
 purposes where the farmers are in the minority — and so 
 hem the farmers in. Hence, it becomes incumbent on 
 farmers not only to give the question of taxation their 
 earnest attention, but their immediate attention also. 
 
 While Mr. George admits that the adoption of his 
 scheme of taxation would destroy the selling value of the 
 farmers' land, he claims ' that it would increase the value 
 of his improvements, and thus make his labor so much 
 more remunerative, that he would be more than com- 
 pensated for the loss of his land. I think it would not 
 only take from him the selling value of his land, but in 
 many cases be the cause of the loss of the improvements 
 as well." 
 
 ' " Social Problems," p. 304. 
 
 "^ According to Mr. Edward Atkinson, the total amount of taxes 
 paid by the people of the United States aggregated $700,000,000 in 
 1880. It is safe to assume that under the single tax much more than 
 one half would have rested upon the land-holdings of the country 
 districts — say $400,000,000. At that time there were 4,008,907 
 farms. For these farms to have paid the $400,000,000, the average 
 
THE SINGLE TAX. 147 
 
 What are the single-tax arguments ? They may be di- 
 vided into two principal divisions, namely : those which 
 maintain that all taxes must finally rest upon the con- 
 sumer ; and the opposites, which maintain that taxes fall 
 altogether upon production. The first may be repre- 
 sented by the following quotations from Mr. Edward At- 
 kinson's " Distribution of Products " : " It will be borne in 
 mind that, with few exceptions, all taxes are distributed, 
 wherever they may be first imposed, and ultimately fall 
 on all consumers in almost the exact ratio of their con- 
 sumption." (p. 103.) "The writer is of the profound 
 conviction that whenever the subject of taxation is re- 
 duced to a science, taxation on real estate will become 
 the source of nearly all taxes." (p. 115.) It is true that 
 in these quotations Mr. Atkinson does not pin his faith 
 to the single tax, or one upon the rent value of land 
 only ; but they serve to represent the opinions of many 
 leading students and publicists upon the subject of the 
 final bearings of taxation. 
 
 As regards taxes upon land (or real estate) and the 
 cultivator, it is argued : Every one must consume the 
 products of land. Every producer must go to the land 
 for his raw material. Consequently, where land is taxed, 
 the one in possession of it is enabled to charge this tax 
 to the consumer, who is obliged to purchase his products. 
 
 On the other hand, Mr. Henry George contends that 
 "a tax on land values does not add to prices, and is 
 thus paid directly by the person on whom it falls ; where- 
 as all taxes upon things of unfixed quantity increase 
 
 would have had to pay f 100. Since the unearned increment, or rent 
 per farm accruing to value of the bare land in the United States, does 
 not reach 40 per cent, of this amount, such a tax would certainly have 
 encroached either upon the farmer's labor or his capital. 
 
I4S AMkRlCAN^ FARMS. 
 
 prices, and in the course of exchange are shifted from 
 seller to buyer, increasing as they go " ' ; that the un- 
 earned increment attached to the value of land should 
 belong to the state ; that it is becoming impossible for 
 laborers to buy farms, and that, as a consequence, the 
 cities are being overcrowded. 
 
 Neither the real-estate-tax advocate, who contends that 
 all taxes placed upon land values must finally rest upon 
 the consumer of the products raised from this land, nor 
 the one who claims that no tax upon land values can add 
 to prices, is, by any means, correct. This is where the 
 grand mistake is made. 
 
 That all must consume the products of land is per- 
 fectly true, but that all must consume the products of 
 labor is also true. Professor Sumner's claim, that the 
 unearned increment is upon most property in a condition 
 of property, is probably not far from correct.' 
 
 The gathering of people about land increases the value 
 of land, the gathering of people on land creates a demand 
 for the products of labor. One waits for his increment, 
 and the other takes it at the time he throws his products 
 on the market. The settler on land is induced to accept 
 a small immediate return for the products of his land, 
 looking to the more remote benefits to be derived through 
 the increasing value of his lands as neighboirs surround 
 him ; the fabricator of the materials extracted from land 
 receives his unearned increment at once. 
 
 That the power of this increment on farm land may be 
 over-estimated, as compared with the productiveness of 
 other industries, is seen now by the relatively impoverished 
 condition of the peasant proprietors of Europe, in their 
 
 ' "The Canons of Taxation," p. 2. 
 ' "What Social Classes Owe to Each Other." 
 
THE SINGLE TAX. I49 
 
 efforts to hold on to their lands with devoted attach- 
 ment after they have ceased to give their owners the 
 necessaries of a tolerable existence (an attachment, how- 
 ever, which it would be a calamity to drive from the 
 human breast). 
 
 Agriculturists could not shift their taxation burdens 
 upon other classes through the price of their productions, 
 simply because agriculture is not a monopoly ; whereas 
 all interests, under the single-tax regime, which are mo- 
 nopolies and touched by it, would have the same chance 
 to shift their tax upon agriculture and other helpless in- 
 dustries, as now. But how easy would it be for great 
 trusts, such as a salt trust, having control of the salt 
 deposits ; or the oil trust ; or the coal and iron, having 
 control of the coal and iron deposits, to force all con- 
 sumers of these commodities to pay their land tax. 
 They would simply charge to cost of production, and 
 the consumers would pay it in the prices paid. 
 
 Customs walls aid these combinations in accomplish- 
 ing their purposes, but they are not necessary for this 
 end when combinations become international in their 
 character. The single-tax advocate contends that by 
 putting a tax upon the unworked mineral lands, these 
 lands would become available to new competitors ; but 
 how long before the latter would be brought into the 
 combination, or be crushed out by those with greater 
 capital ? The average farmer of America to-day is as 
 powerless to burden society in any shape, in his control 
 of the rent value of his land, as he is to make the con- 
 sumer pay his taxes. In fact, these conditions move on 
 parallel lines. 
 
 Mr. George is one who is able to see that the farmer 
 cannot throw the burden of indirect taxation upon other 
 
I50 AMERICAN FARMS. 
 
 classes, for he says : " Let the working farmer consider 
 how the weight of indirect taxation falls upon him, with- 
 out his having the power to shift it off upon any one 
 else ; how it adds to the price of nearly every thing he 
 has to buy, without adding to the price of what he has to 
 sell." ' 
 
 Why has the farmer " not the power to shift it off upon 
 any one else ? " Simply because competition is so great 
 in the articles he produces that he is powerless to make 
 his own prices, and every pinch drives him to seek relief 
 by increasing production — that is to say, competition.' 
 
 Notwithstanding the fact that many things indicate 
 that land is going at the present time into the possession 
 of large holders, and that the small land proprietors are 
 being exterminated, there is not the slightest probability 
 of competition in agriculture diminishing for ages to 
 come. However, let the monopoly period be near or 
 remote, competition under the single-tax regime would 
 be sufficiently severe to exterminate the value of all 
 improvements to the small holder, either through their 
 
 ' "Social Problems," p. 301. 
 
 " When Mr. Edward Atkinson dealt with the question of the rail- 
 way and the farmer in their economic relations, he evidently thought 
 it. quite possible for an industry to be so situated that it would be 
 powerless to increase the prices of its products for the purpose of 
 throwing its taxes or any thing else upon the consumer, for he says : 
 " The charge (freights) which can be put upon the wheat is fixed by 
 the price at which East-India wheat can be sold in Market Lane." 
 (" Distribution of Products," p. 259.) He admits in this that the farmer 
 cannot always make his own prices, consequently taxes may rest upon 
 him when placed there. But, since railways may be in monopoly, 
 the price of wheat at Market Lane may have nothing to do with the 
 amount of freight they may take from the farmer ; besides, they are 
 of the industries which may shove their taxes upon those who use 
 them, as Mr. Atkinson elsewhere states. 
 
THE SINGLE TAX. 15 1 
 
 abandoning their lands early in the contest, or later on 
 when they were obliged to do so. 
 
 Mr. George thinks that the small farmer in competing 
 with his bonanza rival would gain an advantage under 
 his scheme of taxation which he does not now possess, 
 as the small farmer has the greater proportion of im- 
 provements to be freed. But has he sufiSciently con- 
 sidered the fact that the small farmers are principally 
 near the cities, where he proposes to lay the burden of 
 his tax, because there the lands have the greater rent 
 value than in sections more remote, while the small 
 farmer's most troublesome rival is situated on lands 
 which have a much less relative value, and would bear 
 but a small relative tax." It is evident that the land- 
 holders which most threaten the peace of the typical 
 farmer of this country are a landed plutocracy as com- 
 petitive agriculturists, rather than a landed aristocracy 
 withholding land from use. Little England years ago, 
 with a large consuming population, and a great portion 
 of her lands kept out of use by an aristocracy, and with 
 a high protective tariff, was enabled to make agriculture 
 a monopoly. It was then a period when the burdens of 
 taxation were shifted from this industry. From at one 
 time bearing all, it finally fell to less than 5 per cent., 
 where it remains. Under such a condition, lands became 
 abnormally high." The peculiar position of England for 
 a time gave to agriculture every advantage over other 
 
 ' If this be met by the claim that one of the special purposes of the 
 single tax is to bring down the rent value of land in and about the 
 cities, as compared with land in the country, the conclusion must fol- 
 low, from the single-tax theory, that the cities will become the more 
 desirable for the masses to congregate in. Then what becomes of the 
 great argument, the cheapening of country lands for the masses ? 
 
 " See Book V. Chapter IV. on English agriculture. 
 
152 AMERICAN FARMS. 
 
 industries, — a condition which is not likely to occur 
 again very soon, certainly not over the principal part of 
 the globe. In the States and Provinces every year sees 
 the incomes from most other occupations rise in com- 
 parison to the value of farms, and Mr. George was in 
 profound error when he said : " It has already become 
 impossible in our older States for a man starting with 
 nothing to become by his labor the owner of a farm." 
 ("Social Problems," p. 314.) 
 
 The facts are that, in the old States and Provinces, it 
 is becoming all the time easier for the farm laborer to 
 buy out the typical American farmer who employs him ; 
 at the same time, he is less and less inclined to do so, 
 preferring, as he gains means, to make his escape to the 
 cities, or to mechanical occupations. At no period have 
 there been greater opportunities for men of small capital 
 to gain land than during the last twenty years. Yet 
 never in America has the concentration of population in 
 the cities been greater than during this period. 
 
 In leaving the country they leave land, if not falling in 
 value, certainly, in most cases, not rising, to go to where 
 land is rising rapidly in value. The human family, for 
 some cause or other, is preferring those very spots where 
 to obtain land gold enough to near cover it must be 
 offered. It follows that if there is an evil in this flocking 
 to cities, it comes not from pressure for want of land, but 
 from something outside or anterior to the land-pressure 
 trouble. Then the flocking of people to cities, in its 
 relation to land values, is a cause, and not an effect, as 
 the single-tax advocate maintains. The first cause lying 
 back of the flocking of people to cities, other causes 
 than those ascribed by Mr. George for the gregarious 
 tendency of the time must be found. 
 
THE SINGLE TAX. 153 
 
 In truth, these anomalous conditions, of which I have 
 just been writing, seem a proof that the land of the 
 typical American farmer is declining in value through 
 the extreme pressure of taxation of all sorts whiph has 
 been gradually forced upon it, to the ruin of the farmers, 
 rather than that their ruin is coming through land rising 
 in value by escape of direct taxation. If this be correct, 
 the application of Mr. George's cure would be but to add 
 to the disease. 
 
 In the neighborhood where I now write are families 
 supported on incomes from farms which pay in direct 
 taxes over three times as much as corresponding incomes 
 from other occupations ; and I believe conditions similar 
 to this are not rare all over America. Is this equality ? 
 Why should one escape, and not the other ? 
 
 The proprietor farmer, however small the income 
 derived from his occupation, has heavy land taxes to 
 pay ; the wage-earner, who may have twice the income, 
 practically escapes. Is this equality ? 
 
 The mortgaged land proprietor pays the usurers' taxes 
 upon his capital, and the usurer pays on merely the 
 income, and more frequently escapes altogether. Is this 
 justice ? 
 
 Again we quote from Mr. George : " If we impose 
 a tax upon money loaned, as has often been attempted, 
 the lender will charge the tax to the borrower, and the 
 borrower must pay it, or not obtain the loan." (" The 
 Canons of Taxation," p. 2.) 
 
 Not a few labor under the same impression as Mr. 
 George upon this subject. We beg to suggest that this 
 error springs from a defective analysis of the question, 
 notwithstanding the fact that so astute a reasoner as Mr. 
 George is among the number who holji to the theory. 
 
154 AMERICAN FARMS. 
 
 The rate of interest is governed by demand as well as 
 supply ; decrease the number of those who borrow, and 
 demand decreases. Every financial burden lifted from 
 the borrower makes the lender less necessary. Relieve 
 the one million or more mortgaged farms of the United 
 States from all taxation for five years (say $350 in all to 
 each), and put it upon the loaners of money, and then 
 mark the decrease in the number of mortgaged farms. 
 
 In shifting these burdens from the borrower to the 
 lender you increase the number of those who have cap- 
 ital ; you are working in the direction of breaking up a 
 monopoly. With a sugar, a salt, or an oil combine it is 
 different ; put the single tax upon them and still they 
 control the price of sugar, of salt, and of oil ; for these 
 articles are still required, and these combines only fur- 
 nish them. Something further is necessary in regulating 
 the incidence of taxation, a subject which will receive 
 due consideration further on. 
 
 It is argued by the supporter of the single-tax theory 
 that the cities would bear as large a share of the burden 
 as the rural districts, with all taxes levied upon the rent 
 value of land, since real estate in our cities is reaching 
 an aggregate value as great as in the country. Even so 
 it but proves an abnormal condition, which we wish to 
 remedy. Give to rural property the relative value which 
 it had forty years ago, that is to say, from representing 
 35 per cent, of the total wealth of the nation to 60 per 
 cent, — a desirable change, — and where then would the 
 tax fall the heaviest ? Or, apply the tax to-day in Can- 
 ada, and which but the country would pay it ? 
 
 Looking upon the single tax in this, its most flattering 
 aspect, it is found that it can only be applied to an 
 abnormal condition, one which it would aid in continu- 
 
THE SINGLE TAX. 1 55 
 
 ing. It is not reasonable that the lands of a great country 
 should have an aggregate value higher in cities than 
 in its country. Consequently, our aim should be, not 
 merely to establish a system which only promises to serve 
 a condition which must continue false, in order that the 
 system may be maintained, but to look for something to 
 bring about a truer state. 
 
 However, the procuring of a system for laying a just 
 direct tax is a matter of grave importance. This neces- 
 sity has been heedlessly evaded by economists, as well as 
 statesmen, under whose province it comes for treatment. 
 Every thoughtful publicist should know that its solution 
 must become the base on which fiscal reforms must 
 rise ! without which that many-headed monster — indirect 
 taxation — must continue to hold sway. 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 
 INDIRECT TAXATION. 
 
 If farmers have been slow to appreciate the injustice , 
 of the system of direct taxation under which they have 
 labored, and the dangers now threatening them in the 
 agitations going on in the great influential centres to in- 
 crease these evils, it is hardly a wonder that the more 
 intricate question of indirect taxation has failed to receive 
 the disapproval which it merits from them. Yet, on the 
 other hand, it seems almost incredible that a scheme for 
 collecting public revenue could be devised to work so 
 much and so continuous harm as our customs and excise 
 taxes have, without causing louder protests from the 
 masses ere this ; that farmers, who are the most deeply 
 victimized, should nurse the delusion that possibly it 
 was benefiting them. 
 
 It is plainly evident that indirect taxation has been the 
 chief working instrument in a system of government 
 prevailing in America, through which the slavery of class 
 to class is being secured. Through it, the policy of pro- 
 tection, of which we have said so much in condemnation 
 in the preceding chapters, has been of easy application. 
 It has shown how it is possible, by artificial means, to 
 entirely change the course of national industry. Without 
 it, or similar means, it must have followed the course in 
 America which the protectionists of as far back as 1789 
 
 156 
 
INDIRECT TAXATION. \%f 
 
 decided it should not follow, viz. : " Seek with success a 
 competency from our cheap and fertile soil." ' Thus a 
 century ago the first blow at American agriculture was 
 given. 
 
 Practically, America's indirect-taxation system is just a 
 century old. The modest proportions of the monster's 
 early days seem almost ridiculous compared with its 
 present huge development. The United States customs 
 tariff of 1789, equivalent to an advalorem rate of 8| per 
 cent, as a temporary expedient, has grown to a vicious 
 tax of above 40 per cent. Canada is marching in the 
 same direction, and at a rate quite as rapid. 
 
 To-day the evasions and perversions of the customs 
 laws involve sums in terms of money not far behind the 
 total-revenue considerations of a hundred years ago, to 
 say little of the more important matter of the moral 
 ^ects on the parties immediately in contact with the 
 operations of the law. It is well, perhaps, for the peace 
 of the spirits of those worthy gentlemen who in 1789 
 protested against an %\ per cent, tariff, because of the 
 temptation it would offer to the breaking of law and 
 endangering the morals of the people, that they are 
 probably ignorant of the fact, that here in America, 
 within a century, under the fostering influence of the 
 system then introduced, smuggling has become a fine 
 art. 
 
 The history of our indirect taxation is an interesting 
 study. From it we learn how it is possible for a people 
 to become gradually and unconsciously enslaved, the 
 power of the people to govern themselves to be snatched 
 away, and the safety of our civilization brought into 
 peril. Even away back in the days of the Romans, im- 
 ' Fisher Ames, 
 
1 58 AMERICAN' farms: 
 
 ports on merchandise were levied, it is true, for revenue 
 purposes ; but a tariff, as a chief medium in holding 
 together a system of government^-a sort of despotism by 
 jugglery, — has, strange to say, its highest development in 
 modern ages. 
 
 Through indirect taxation, alliances between selfish 
 interests having the command of wealth and govern- 
 ments with matchless fondness for attachments which 
 insure possession of abundant money resources, are 
 easily formed. Thus combines, monopolies, and other 
 moneyed interests become ascendant in government. 
 Such a rule brings the liberties of the people into actual 
 peril. Farmers have much to fear from the sway of 
 the plutocrat. Some one very correctly remarks : " A 
 plutocracy has its throne in cities ; an aristocracy in 
 the country." Even an aristocracy is in sympathy with 
 the great rural classes. Moreover, with the country 
 shorn of its political power, democracy is a delusion. It 
 follows, that the farmers, of all others, are imperilled by 
 a revenue system which secures the alliance of wealth 
 and government. But more of this elsewhere. 
 
 The first great canon of taxation laid down by all 
 eminent economists is to the effect that the volume of 
 taxation be rigidly limited to the actual necessities of 
 the state. The violation in America of this first rule is 
 to be laid principally to the door of our system of in- 
 direct taxation. Politicians have learned that by this 
 system " the fowl is plucked without crying out." Tax- 
 ation always becomes so adjusted as to bear upon those 
 least likely to rebel against it. That the farmers are they 
 of America who have never yet united their forces to 
 resist this system of oppression is patent to all who have 
 given the subject any attention. 
 
INDIRECT TAXATION. 1 59 
 
 We speak advisedly when we say — it cannot be uttered 
 too often — that " indirect taxation is a cowardly, mean, 
 unjust method of drawing from the small incomes of 
 the people at large, vast aggregate amounts, which, if 
 proportionately borne by the rich, would result in their 
 immediate rebellion." This brings us to consider the 
 fact that through our indirect tax we are continually in- 
 creasing the violation of another most important canon 
 of taxation — to wit, the levying of taxation in just 
 proportion between rich and poor. 
 
 Adam Smith's rule as to equality was, that "the sub- 
 jects of every state ought to contribute toward the 
 support of the government as nearly as possible in pro- 
 portion to the revenue which they respectively enjoy 
 under the protection of the state." This canon must 
 stand as the citadel of justice in schemes for obtaining 
 public revenue ; for the power of private revenue in 
 society increases to the individual possessing it, as reve- 
 nue is augmented from that of yielding what may barely 
 suffice for existence to that of affluence and luxury. 
 
 Placing the bearings of indirect taxation on consump- 
 tion at say 15 per cent., we will have the family whose 
 total income is $240, with the bare necessities of exist- 
 ence requiring an outlay of $200 before indirect taxes 
 are paid, contributing $30 for revenue, or 12.5 per cent, 
 of total income ; while, on the other hand, the family 
 whose income is $10,000, living in comparative luxury 
 on an outlay of $5,000, will be paying $750 in taxes, or 
 only 7 1 percent, on total income. One will be paying 
 75 per cent, of possible savings — the true consideration 
 in estimating the incidence of taxation ; the other, less 
 than 8 per cent. The million-dollar income contributes 
 I to i^ per cent, for revenue, and the so-called poor 
 
l6o AMERICAN FARMS. 
 
 man his lo to 20 per cent. How unjust ! the state 
 stimulating the growth of inequality by treatment totally 
 unscientific as well as inhumane.' 
 
 To those who say that our indirect taxes are so regu- 
 lated as to bear heaviest on articles consumed by the 
 rich, we reply : A study of our tariff laws, our trade 
 and navigation returns, and the opinions of those having 
 practical information on the subject does not warrant 
 such a conclusion. The writer's many years of constant 
 observation of the workings of America's customs laws, 
 and a knowledge of the many advantages, taken and con- 
 cessions made, permit him to make no such deduction 
 in behalf of the wisdom and humanity of these laws. 
 " Books, carpets, dishes, " and the like, are a necessity of 
 civilized life, and " surely " the so-called " poor men " of 
 our farmers who should be obliged to " do without these " 
 are few ; though there are politicians who think other- 
 wise.' 
 
 Another important canon of taxation is to the effect 
 that a tax should take as little as possible beyond the 
 sum that reaches the exchequer. Our system of indirect 
 taxation is most expensive, for it exacts large sums from 
 the payer, through the profits charged by the merchant 
 who advances the tax. 
 
 Mr. Henry C. Carey was an uncompromising opponent 
 of free trade and decidedly in favor of land taxes, but he 
 has left on record the result of a vast amount of research, 
 
 ' One hundred thousand capitalists in the United States are enabled 
 to save more after taxes are paid than fifteen millions of its people, 
 in whom are included the farmers, the greatest actual wealth pro- 
 ducers of the commonwealth. 
 
 ' The pauper is not treated as a subject for consideration in the 
 incidence of taxation, as he is supported by the state in any case, 
 
INDIRECT TAXATION. l6l 
 
 accompanied by his own opinions, all in most pronounced 
 opposition to indirect taxation. He tells of how at one 
 time, in the days of the Roman Empire, " duties on im- 
 ports and exports, on the passage of country produce 
 into towns and cities, on the passage of rivers, on sales 
 by auction, on almost every kind of property in motion, 
 mark the later portion of the history of the republic, and 
 the whole of that of the empire. Slaves could not change 
 masters, nor could property change hands by legacy or 
 donation, without payment of a tax. The raising of 
 cattle and the consumption of salt were privileges to be 
 paid for to the state. The consumer of water, and he 
 who needed to avoid it, alike were taxed. Nothing was 
 so trivial in appearance as to warrant its escape from 
 the hands of the tax-gatherer, provided only that it 
 promised to add to a revenue required for the main- 
 tenance of a system under which labor and land declined 
 in value and slavery took the place of freedom." 
 
 Of Turkey he said : " Taxation there has no reference 
 whatever to the value of the land, but only to the ability 
 of the collector and his agents to squeeze from its culti- 
 vator the largest share of its products." 
 
 Thus also of the United States : " The government of 
 the United States has, throughout most of its existence, 
 been misled by the erroneous idea that indirect taxation 
 was the legitimate mode of raising the public revenue. 
 . . . What has been the effect of this policy is seen in 
 the facts already stated in relation to the comparative 
 prices of agricultural products they need to sell and those 
 metallic ones they require to purchase — the experience 
 of forty years having exhibited a steady and regular 
 increase in the quantity of wheat, flour, rice, tobacco, 
 and cotton required to be given in exchange for smaller 
 
l62 AMERICAN FARMS. 
 
 quantities of lead, tin, iron, copper, gold, and silver. 
 That being the road towards barbarism, and the course 
 in that direction having been continued with remarkable 
 pertinacity, we are thus supplied with an explanation of 
 the facts, that the power of trade grows steadily while 
 that of commerce declines, and that in the land in which 
 all men were once declared to be free and equal ' free 
 society ' is now declared to have proved 'a failure.'"' 
 And still the difficulty becomes greater. More decided 
 protection has only augmented the forces of centraliza- 
 tion within the national bounds, but indirect taxation 
 remains the same evil. 
 
 ' " Social Science," vol. iii., p. 191. 
 
CHAPTER IV. 
 
 DIRECT TAXATION. 
 
 Mr. Thomas G. Shearman, who is a student of this 
 subject, claims that for the United States, by the substi- 
 tution of direct for indirect taxation, $650,000,000, or 
 nearly one half the present burden, might be saved the 
 people ; the total aggregate weight being $1,350,000,000, 
 made up of the " share to government, profits on levy by 
 merchants, and the action of the tariff in increasing the 
 cost of domestic manufactures." 
 
 The writer's estimate is as follows : United States 
 customs and excise taxes amount to about $335,000,000 
 a year ; domestic manufactures, which now amount to 
 about $6,000,000,000, are increased in price at least 5 
 per cent, (one quarter the average protection), which 
 gives $300,000,000. By adding together the taxes paid 
 into the treasury and that paid the manufacturers, we 
 have $635,000,000, on which the jobbers and retailers 
 get at least 20 per cent., or an aggregate amount of 
 $137,000,000. Thus we have $1,132,000,000, representing 
 the indirect taxes upon the people of the United States ; 
 a yearly tax equivalent to $12.86 per capita, or $64.30 
 for the family of five. If this is the approximate sum of 
 the indirect taxes bearing upon the average farmers of 
 America, it is quite enough to account for the decline of 
 American agriculture. 
 
 163 
 
164 AMERICAN FARMS. 
 
 In Canada the federal treasury gets about $28,000,000 
 at the present time through indirect taxation ; domestic 
 manufactures, which now amount to above $400,000,000,' 
 are increased on the average not less than 5 per cent., 
 making another burden on the consumer of at least 
 $20,000,000. On these two amounts the merchants, 
 jobbers, and retailers who collect them get at least 
 another 20 per cent., or $5,760,000, making in all the 
 fine sum of $57,600,000, or about $57 for the average 
 family. 
 
 An average direct tax of $25 against the million or 
 more incomes in Canada would secure a revenue of $25,- 
 000,000. Would this not be a change calculated to 
 lighten the load carried by many a tax-burdened citizen ? 
 An annual direct tax of $15 upon each of the upwards 
 of 500,000 farm holdings in Canada would yield a 
 revenue greater than the sum total of its customs col- 
 lections of twenty years ago ($8,578,000 in 1868). This 
 even would be too liberal a contribution to the federal 
 treasury from the farmers of Canada ; a small one, how- 
 ever, compared with that now extracted from them. 
 The cities have a burden to bear, and personal property 
 has no right to escape. Death, probate, legacy, or 
 succession duties, to a limited extent, could also be 
 utilized to regulate inequality. 
 
 But, on whatever taxation be laid, it should rest on 
 the respective payers, as strictly as possible, in propor- 
 tion to income, and it should, after a certain limit, be 
 progressive. This is really the only scientific base on 
 which to found an equitable fiscal structure ; one at the 
 same time in perfect accord with the highest principles 
 of ethics. God never intended science to divide the 
 
 ' Estimated $635,000,000 for 1889. 
 
DIRECT TAXATION. 165 
 
 brotherhood of men by an impassable gulf, growing 
 wider and ever wider. Its mission is rather to bring all 
 this seeming conflict of interests into harmony. 
 
 Properly adjust a progressive tax on property and 
 mammoth incomes, and you give relief to the one to 
 whom the labor for the gratification of his necessities is a 
 real burden of itself. Levy this progressive tax with 
 all the weight it should have on combines, trusts, and 
 monopolies, and you give back to society an increment 
 which is really unearned. Tax the bonanza farmer in 
 this progressive way, relieve the small proprietor, and 
 competition would be relieved of a terror, the result of 
 an abnormal condition. 
 
 Small farmers could well demand this — without which 
 there appears no salvation for them, — a right in conform- 
 ity with science and the common weal ; but not as 
 suppliants for the crumbs .of state charity ; not as the 
 millions of the peasantry of France and Germany, who 
 are now receiving presumed favors from the state after 
 being destroyed as actual forces in the national life. 
 
 Allow the small farmers of the world, before they 
 have lost courage and become depraved, to come under 
 the influence of these wise changes as to taxation ; to 
 take a place as the ideal typical farmers of America, 
 and their power and usefulness as tax producers would 
 prove them no subjects for the exercise of charity, but 
 the equal of any of their contemporaries in bearing 
 the burdens of the state. It is an abnormal condition 
 which makes the farmer a subject of charity. 
 
 While these are my views on the one hand, I maintain 
 on the other that it would be harmful as well as un- 
 scientific political economy to prohibit the aggregation 
 of capital in industry. Deal with these matters by way 
 
1 66 AMERICAN FARMS. 
 
 of taxation, as the great economist, Adam Smith, sug- 
 gested over one hundred years ago. Allow capital 
 freedom to work — the state securing its share ; permit no 
 public favors, and the harm from it will be brought into 
 small proportions. If it becomes a monopoly, and is thus 
 empowered to shift its burdens on the consumers of its 
 products, it is then robbing the citizens of the state, and 
 taxes should be put upon it until monopoly is broken. 
 If the state be a factor in the accumulation of incomes, 
 how much more is it true of the incomes which 
 roll up into the millions, than of those which barely 
 suffice for the possessor's existence ? How much more 
 then should the state claim from the former than from the 
 latter ? These views are in accord with those of many 
 thoughtful students of the present day, while a few 
 practical statesmen have dared to utter similar ones. 
 
 " The rich man, with a surplus income, should con- 
 tribute more proportionately out of that income, than 
 the poor man out of that poverty which leaves him no 
 more than a bare subsistence.'' ' J. B. Say, long ago, 
 taught that " taxation is a sacrifice to the preservation of 
 society and social organization, which ought not to be 
 purchased by the destruction of individuals " ; that taxa- 
 tion " cannot be equitable unless its ratio is progressive." " 
 
 An excellent precedent for a progressive tax is given 
 in the eminently successful fiscal legislation of Solon, in 
 the little community of Attica. The weight of taxation 
 was then laid upon the largest property-holders — those 
 having the highest political privileges ; the next class 
 was relieved to the extent of \ ; the next f, and so on, 
 until those were reached who were ineligible for office — 
 
 ' Hon. Edward Blake, speech at Toronto, 1886. 
 ' " Political Economy," p. 459. 
 
DIRECT TAXATION. 1 67 
 
 these were relieved altogether. It is true that Solon's tax 
 was levied principally on land, but the largest part of the 
 people were at that time landholders, and it became the 
 main concern to make taxation equitable between the 
 small and the large land proprietors, and this Solon's 
 policy accomplished in a high degree. In it was ex- 
 hibited the " most equitable division of the responsibili- 
 ties of citizenship that the world has ever seen." And 
 through it a condition of society was established which 
 " affected even succeeding generations most beneficially." 
 Legislation which followed finally overthrew all this, and 
 the masses became re-enslaved. 
 
 Mr. R. G. Haywood read an excellent paper before 
 the Social Science Congress at Huddersfield, England, 
 in 1883, on " How to Apply Direct Taxation." For 
 England he suggested the following distribution : 
 
 -Lands and Tenements at 4^. in the pound 
 
 income 37.4 i, 
 
 — Railways, Canals, Mines, Minerals, at 4.?. in 
 
 the pound income 10.8 " 
 
 — Legacy Duty 2.8 " 
 
 Succession Duty at \s. in the pound 15.0 " 
 
 — House Tax (warehouses, factories, works, 
 
 offices, shops, etc.) 20.0 " 
 
 — Miscellaneous 14.0 " 
 
 lOO.O ^ 
 
 In amplifying this Mr. Haywood said : " The forego- 
 ing estimate is intended to show not only that there are 
 abundant sources from which ample income may be 
 drawn, but which are now unjustly allowed to escape 
 their legal liability. Moreover, it is plain that a suffi- 
 
l68 AMERICAN FARMS. 
 
 cient revenue may thus be obtained by a direct system 
 in the simplest manner at less cost of collection, and 
 with no interference with the operations of trade. 
 
 " The present house duty affords the best foundation 
 on which to build a system of direct taxation, extending 
 to all interests beyond the owners of land. Every man 
 resides in a house of some kind. Household suffrage is 
 now the basis of our parliamentary franchise, and this 
 fact will go far to reconcile even the lower classes ,to a 
 revenue system constructed upon it. Adam Smith 
 observes that ' a proportional house tax might perhaps 
 produce a more considerable revenue than any that has 
 been drawn from it in any part of Europe.' Again he 
 says : ' A tax put upon house rents would in general 
 fall heaviest upon the rich, and in this sort of inequality 
 there would not be any thing unreasonable.' 
 
 " It is not very unreasonable that the rich should con- 
 tribute to the public expense, not only in proportion to 
 their revenue, but something more than that proportion. 
 To this, however, as well as to any other proposal whatever, 
 a hundred objections will be raised. But a graduated tax, 
 beginning with the exemption of the very poorest class 
 having a bare subsistence, and rising in a scale adjusted 
 not according to rent alone, but taking also into ac- 
 count the occupation, profession, and position in rank, 
 might, and doubtless would, bring in a more elastic and 
 productive revenue than our present income tax.'' 
 
 The more these matters are studied, the clearer it will 
 appear that the matter of adjusting a progressive tax, 
 is not a more insurmountable difficulty than that of 
 adjusting a single tax by taking the unearned incre- 
 ment of land. And, whether with or without the single- 
 tax system, all lands held for speculative purposes 
 
DIRECT TAXA TION. 169 
 
 should be taxed at their highest rate up to their full 
 market value, both for federal and local revenue. The 
 same may be said of bonanza farms. 
 
 With direct taxation, however levied, a stop may be 
 put to lavish and unnecessary public expenditures. Lord 
 Derby's remark forcibly expressed its immense advan- 
 tages- when he said: "By making the whole revenue 
 depend upon direct taxation, the pressure would be so 
 odious that war would be avoided, because no party 
 would incur the odium of carrying it on." The tax- 
 payer will have a direct interest in holding a govern- 
 ment to strict account for exactions which are made 
 directly against him, for the reason that he directly 
 feels the severity of the burden imposed. Under such 
 circumstances it is only reasonable to suppose that he 
 will weigh well the question of his ability to bear the 
 imposition before he sanctions expenditures which may 
 be avoided. This certainly is another weighty argument 
 in favor of direct taxation. With direct taxation a check 
 would be immediately put to the growing power of Par- 
 liaments. With it properly laid, and with the results 
 which would necessarily follow, the American farmer 
 would again take his place in our legislative chambers. 
 
CHAPTER V. 
 
 THE REAL STRENGTH OF AN EVIL SYSTEM OF 
 TAXATION. 
 
 In early times despotism gained its power by physical 
 force. It is claimed, with good reason, that, in most in- 
 stances of to-day, governments gain ascendancy, not only 
 over their opponents but over the people at large, by 
 cunning. It is conspicuously apparent to the student 
 of these subjects that, by this means, they are continually 
 increasing their command of the purses of the people of 
 America, and making stronger their alliances with the 
 wealthy classes. Surely, with such an advantage as this, 
 they have the power of position. Will they yield it up 
 without a desperate struggle ? We think they will not. 
 
 Professor Sumner very correctly remarks : " It is the 
 Forgotten Man who is threatened by every extension of 
 the paternal system of government." ' " Every new sub- 
 ject to be legislated upon strengthens the influence and 
 power of government, makes the politician more import- 
 ant in his own eyes, as well as in the eyes of others." 
 " All governments like to interfere ; it elevates their 
 position to make out that they can cure the evils of man- 
 kind." ' As the subjects seeking legislative benefits are 
 continually increasing, these potent props to the paternal 
 
 ' " What the Social Classes Owe to Each Other," p. 150. 
 
 ' Walter Bagehot, in " Economic Studies. " 
 
 170 
 
AN EVIL SYSTEM OF TAXATION. I71 
 
 system constantly augment its power ; while " expectant 
 ones " who hope, sooner or later, to have a shate in 
 " manipulating the state control," — even down to the day 
 laborer, — are ever putting themselves in line to give it 
 support. Do away with indirect taxation, and place direct 
 taxation upon a proper basis, and the paternal govern- 
 ment of a civilized country would be shorn of its greatest 
 power, and the leaders of its forces know this only too' 
 well. The twenty or more millionaires in the Senate of the 
 United States are thoroughly imbued with the idea that 
 wealth and government are inseparable ; they know just 
 how specially serviceable government may be to wealth, 
 and how specially serviceable wealth may be to govern- 
 ment, and they, like their fellows in every department of 
 the political machine, govern themselves accordingly. 
 The result is that against reform in our system of taxa- 
 tion and the evils it occasions there is a well consoli- 
 dated force, commanded by well-trained, experienced, 
 and self-interested officers. 
 
 But it is not only this regular army of active forces 
 which opposes this reform, there is also a force of nega- 
 tives, more or less irregular, who are most effective 
 impediments to wholesome efforts to effect this purpose. 
 They object to the policies of the actives, but they 
 formulate nothing to stimulate hope in the breasts of 
 those who long for remedial action. Worthless as are 
 their objections to action on the lines of their professions, 
 they are really grave stumbling-blocks to the many who 
 may desire a better state of things, for their ever ready 
 " wet blanket " is a constant check to weak-hearted 
 though honest reformers.' Yet reform is imperative. 
 
 ' One of the most effective objections to radical changes in fiscal 
 policies made by its assumed friends, is that the necessity for large 
 
172 AMERICAN PA RMS. 
 
 However ponderous and expensive the machinery of 
 the state may be, it draws its support solely from the 
 substance of the people. " Woe to the people who are 
 incapable of limiting the sphere of the action of the 
 state. Liberty, private activity, riches, well-being, inde- 
 pendence, dignity depend upon this." ' 
 
 Have the farmers and the thoughtful people of America 
 lost that power which alone can overcome these condi- 
 tions, the continued triumphing of which must finally 
 result in the ruin of all ? 
 
 revenues precludes the possibility of making these changes. The 
 reasoning is absurd : first, because revenue will always be required, 
 and, under our present system, whatever party is in power, every day 
 is making the conditions worse ; second, if it be admitted that a 
 change would be desirable for the collection of a small revenue, it is 
 still more desirable for the collection of a large one. Under our 
 system of taxation, the volume is increased at an arithmetical ratio, 
 while the evils may be said to increase at a geometrical ratio. 
 ' Frederic Bastiat. 
 
BOOK VI. 
 
 POLITICS. 
 
 The conditions of prosperity with every people are involved in the 
 extent to which they bring their purest and wisest minds into positions 
 of honor and control. No nation, however strong ; no nation, how- 
 ever vigorous, could long preserve its relative prestige and prosperity 
 in the world, if it should disregard these conditions. — Dorman B. 
 Eaton. 
 
CHAPTER I. 
 
 THE FARMER LOSING HIS POUTICAL POWER. 
 
 That the farmer of America is rapidly losing his 
 chances to have a controlling influence in the political 
 concerns of his country is patent to all who will give the 
 subject any consideration. In the United States, forty 
 years ago, the farmers composed 70 per cent, of the 
 industrial population. And even twenty years ago 
 the cattle farmers and agriculturists outnumbered all 
 others. To-day they are in the minority. In Canada the 
 agriculturist vote is still in the majority ; but even in 
 this new country we fear the farmer is losing a lingering 
 chance to save his class from political annihilation. In 
 proportion to numbers and to capital invested in agri- 
 culture and cattle farming, compared with numbers and 
 amounts invested by other classes, there should be over 
 one hundred farmers representing their various con- 
 stituencies, sitting in the Dominion Parliament, and 
 looking after the interests of the agriculturists. Instead 
 of that number, not more than thirty-nine can in any way 
 be classed as representing the farmers. Of the whole 
 number of the last United States House of Representa- 
 tives, only seventeen were farmers, or i to every 470,000 
 of that occupation. Even in 1870 twenty-six farmers, or 
 I to every 228,000 of their number, had a seat in the 
 House. In our State and Provincial Legislatures, the 
 
 175 
 
176 AMERICAN FARMS. 
 
 representatives from other classes outnumber the farmers 
 by three to one. These facts prove a decreasing power 
 in the farmers in a matter fraught with vital importance 
 to them. 
 
 Educated men of the professions are necessary for 
 certain positions in Parliament. But the majority of our 
 public men are inclined to encourage large expenditures, 
 elaborate formulas, numberless acts, and to the securing 
 of vast powers to Parliaments — much of all which is 
 decidedly antagonistic to the true interests of the people. 
 After prorogations, they boaSt of their labors, and the 
 number of their acts passed, many of which will, in the 
 public interest, require repealing. In Mr. Herbert 
 Spencer's " Sins of Legislators," he informs us that in 
 May, 1873, a Mr. Jason, vice-president of one of the law 
 societies of England, publicly stated that from the time 
 of Henry III. to 1872, there had been passed through 
 Parliament, in England r8,iio public acts, of which four 
 fifths had been wholly or partially repealed. We are in- 
 clined to think, that at no time have politicians been 
 more anxious to magnify the necessity for much legisla- 
 tion than at the present day, and in no portion of the 
 globe more than in some of our own local as well as our 
 federal Legislatures. 
 
 In 1861, the farmers of Nova Scotia composed 61 per 
 cent, of the industrial population of the province ; in 
 1881, 43 per cent. This constant relative decline in the 
 n,umbers of the agricultural class, as compared with 
 others, shows most plainly that however prone the 
 farmer may be at the present to throw away his chances, 
 the time is not far distant when the power which he 
 might exercise to-day will be gone, perhaps never to 
 return. 
 
THE FARMER LOSING HIS POLITICAL PO WER. I JJ 
 
 Few, we think, will deny that even on great questions 
 the farmer usually supports the old party, but he does it 
 from far higher motives than those which govern the aver- 
 age voter. But the consequences are that the politician 
 thinks it unnecessary to give himself any concern as to far- 
 mers' rights or his support. And, whatever has been 
 said to the contrary, the average farmer of America is, I 
 believe, above bribes. He, the farmer, with his industry, 
 his self-reliance, is really the nation-builder ; but in poli- 
 tics his vote counts but one, and the politician has faith 
 enough in his integrity to know for whom it will be cast. 
 With all that must be done to suit the exigencies of the 
 times, the demands for benefactions, protections, pre- 
 ventions, and encouragements, and which the State can 
 only satisfy by large demands upon the farmer and his 
 like, who have produced and saved, — the farmer is what 
 Professor Sumner calls him, "The Forgotten Man." 
 
 Even in many constituencies where agriculture largely 
 predominates either a coal, a coal-oil, a cotton-seed, a 
 railroad, a sugar-refining, or a cotton-manufacturing mo- 
 nopoly marches its forces to the polls, " an organized 
 army." The agricultural vote is, so far as self-interest is 
 concerned, practically a fruitless effort. When our poll- 
 ing days arrive, our agriculturists gather around the 
 booths and promptly record their votes. So long as 
 only farmers vote, the ward-workers have little trouble 
 to decide the state of the poll, carefully guarded as the 
 secrets of the poll may be. They know that their neigh- 
 bors are influenced in their choice of representatives, in 
 the main, by their feelings in reference to the antecedents 
 of the party whose name the candidate bears. But the 
 effect on the ballot-box by the squad of electors who 
 are to be marched down from the factories near by, will 
 
 8* 
 
178 AMERICAN FARMS. 
 
 depend altogeth-er upon the numbers who turn out. An- 
 tecedents do not count with these. At such important 
 times a half -holiday is usually granted. " Election day ! " 
 " Hurrah for Edgar Thompson ! " " Hurrah for the age 
 of steel ! " This great array of toilers march and record 
 their votes in support of the majestic power of capital. 
 Their numbers decide the state of the poll before the 
 ballot closes. The friends of monopoly gather in crowds 
 around the bootjis, the opponents disappear, capital 
 wins ! " Hurrah for the hammer ! " " Hurrah for 
 patriotism and progress ! " A daring sceptic may have 
 the hardihood to wait the sheriff's decision, and upon 
 this outburst he very well suggests that it would be 
 better if they could hurrah for " liberty, patriotism, and 
 progress." He would be told that "the man who cries 
 'liberty' is an enemy to his country." The daring op- 
 ponent might well retort that, " at the back of all this, 
 there is a despotism which will one day crush us all.'' 
 He would be told : " If you don't like your country, you 
 had better get out." " Hurrah for the age of steel ! " 
 " There will be a grand dinner and an illumination 
 at the factory ! " " Hurrah for Mammon & Co ! " 
 Farmers of America ! You have against you an or- 
 ganized enemy that requires a solid union of your whole 
 strength to combat, or you are most surely undone ! 
 
 Though far from believing in unbridled liberalism, or 
 rather the extreme of egoism, I think there can be little 
 doubt that Mr. Herbert Spencer is correct in his claim 
 that one of the most alarming tendencies of our time is 
 the encroaching power of Parliaments, and the willing- 
 ness with which the people are surrendering one pre- 
 rogative after another to the control of legislators. By 
 such yielding up of the management of concerns, which 
 
THE FARMER LOSING HIS POLITICAL PO WER. 1 79 
 
 were once considered best under the control of individ- 
 ual choice, a slavery is established, which, though volun- 
 tary, is none the less real. The consequences are that 
 not only is the scope of individual development and 
 relative influence lessened; but, through such deliver- 
 ance, new opportunities are created for selfish and 
 unscrupulous lobbyists to victimize the masses. 
 
 We have seen the popularity of meddlesome legislation 
 in the United States ; and we have also seen the ease 
 with which Canadian legislators have been able to satisfy 
 their constituents, that in the hands of a paternal gov- 
 ernment they could trust the management of their 
 dearest interests. 
 
 In the United States, at the present time, seventy-five 
 per cent, of the people allow their liberties, in regard to 
 trade, to be sacrificed to satisfy the avarice of a few 
 monopolists and the needs of a ponderous political sys- 
 tem. Yet the fathers of this same people, little more 
 than one hundred years ago, rose in their might and 
 waged war with England to gain perfect commercial 
 freedom. Just now, in Canada, a faction are clamoring 
 for the privilege of having their commercial dealings 
 confined to this continent alone ; though the liberties, 
 and chances for trade, which they are willing to imperil, 
 are valuable beyond compare with those which the colo- 
 nies of America a century ago were ready to fight for in 
 order to secure to their own control. In America, the 
 most burdensome system of taxation that can be devised 
 — taxes on imports — has increased, in the last twenty-five 
 years, many times the increase of population. And still 
 the people sanction a continual increase. Will they 
 eventually cry a halt ? Or will they allow it to go on 
 unchecked, until they are powerless to compel a change ? 
 
l8o AMERICAN FARMS. 
 
 Our political systems give to our legislators most 
 tempting opportunities, by effecting slight changes, to 
 put thousands into the hands of the monopolist and the 
 treasury at the expense of the people ; while the manu- 
 facturer in return will put his hundreds into the poli- 
 tician's election fund, and make a good bargain by this 
 exchange of services. The politician has but to support 
 the aims of the monopolist, and the monopolist will stand 
 by the politician. 
 
 So apparently irresistible are the toils of our various 
 politico-fiscal systems that even some of our best men 
 are unable to escape their pernicious influence. Have 
 we not recently seen our most earnest, able, high-minded, 
 and experienced statesmen, who, from their first entry 
 into the political arena, have stood by the masses, finally 
 advocating the cause of the oppressor as a last recourse 
 for a return to power ? The results, of course, are a 
 greater victory for capital and the loss of champions for 
 the interests of the people. 
 
 Many of our laws are made, not in the interest of the 
 masses, but for the selfish ends of the few, and very often 
 for the direct benefit of the selfish politicians who make 
 them. A goodly number of our people know all this ; 
 they feel that its corrupting and demoralizing influence 
 has permeated through our whole social life ; but we, in 
 effect, have decided that party despotism must be main- 
 tained. 
 
 How appropriate are these words of Bastiat : " What ! 
 the law is no longer the refuge of the oppressed, but the 
 arm of the oppressor ! The law is no longer a shield, 
 but a sword ! The law no longer holds in her august 
 hands a scale, but false weights and measures ! And you 
 wish to have society well regulated ! Your system has 
 
THE FARMER LOSING HIS POLITICAL PO WER. 1 8 1 
 
 written over the entrance of the legislative halls these 
 words : ' Whoever acquires any influence here can obtain 
 his share of the legalized pillage.' And what has been 
 the result ? All classes of society have become demora- 
 lized by shouting around the gates of the palace : ' Give 
 me a share in the spoils ! ' " 
 
 Yes, many of us know full well that our laws are op- 
 pressive, demoralizing, and expensive. Professor Sum- 
 ner says of the United States : " Men are put up for the 
 correction of these bad laws who are ' no better than the 
 laws themselves ' " — men whose hearts are not in the 
 interest of reforms, whose very natures prompt them to 
 oppression. Can we expect an extension of justice and 
 liberty at their hands ? " Can you gather grapes from 
 thorns, or figs from thistles ? " Party declares for them ; 
 and the independent voice, the best voice of the country, 
 is not heard in our legislative halls.' 
 
 Our public men are urged to stand by principle, by 
 truth, by the cause of real liberalism, as the only cause 
 worth working for, as the cause which must eventually 
 win. But, in return, they say : " It is no time to philoso- 
 phize, to moralize, to theorize " ; that " the man who 
 
 ' Says New York Tribune editorially : ' ' The governing classes at 
 Ottawa prosper with the adventurous aid of railway contracts and 
 jobbery of every description. . . . The future seems dark and uncer- 
 tain and clouded with difficulty, because the present is a period of 
 disenchantment, during which the people have found out that Confed- 
 eration is enriching a powerful ring of government politicians, office- 
 holders, and corruptionists, without promoting the permanent pros- 
 perity of the people." — October, i88g. The people of Canada may 
 be induced to stand Jiy Confederation, but the greatest cause for dis- 
 satisfaction is in its being held together by the very system which 
 Sir John Macdonald borrowed from the protectionists of the United 
 States, for whom the New York Tribune is the chief organ. 
 
1 82 AMERICAN FARMS. 
 
 advocates principles is a crank, a lunatic " ; that " the 
 first and main thing is victory, principles afterwards." 
 Victory or no victory, principles are shoved aside or 
 degraded into merely serving the objects of the hour. 
 These politicians, it is true, often go to the hustings 
 advocating changes of the most startling character for 
 the presumed welfare of the " sovereign people." But 
 when they get into secure positions themselves, they 
 coolly take effectual measures to shelve these reforms or 
 warp them into harmony with their own selfish interests. 
 And are they brought to book by the people, as they 
 should be ? O no ! Unforeseen circumstances require 
 a new programme, and the dissatisfied are silenced for 
 the time.' 
 
 New schemes are being continually set afloat to mys- 
 tify and captivate, and for the purpose of using up taxa- 
 tion surpluses, and to furnish excuses for further drafts 
 on the people. For the onerous tax extracted from the 
 citizen through a vicious system one day, he is made to 
 laud and glorify his representatives the next for gaining 
 for him, in the most conspicuous and flattering manner, 
 a trifling service in return, the intrinsic value of which 
 may be most questionable. 
 
 Our political schemes are decided, not by the inherent 
 value of the different planks in the platform agreed on — 
 not because those planks rest upon principles of high 
 and desirable order, but because their adoption offers, as 
 
 ' All thoughtful persons can bear testimony that the result of a 
 dependence upon expedients ends in barren result — sorrow and con- 
 fusion. Legislators are but human. Statecraft, Jiowever, is supposed 
 to be the work of ripe experience. Says Ruskin : " It is far better 
 to spend your thousand pounds in making a good gun, and then blow 
 it to pieces, than to pass a life of idleness, Only do not let it be 
 
THE FARMER LOSING HIS POLITICAL PO WER. 1 83 
 
 the politician believes, the easiest and quickest route to 
 power, to office, to the public treasury. These policies 
 are made by the great " bosses," who give their orders to 
 the professionals, and who write and work up the inter- 
 ests of party organizations in line with the party policy. 
 The professionals give their orders to special ward- 
 workers, who are supposed to carry out, to the letter, the 
 plan of the "bosses." Those who " kick," remonstrate, 
 or philosophize, are ostracised from any participation in 
 the management or secrets of the great organizations. 
 They are treated with the utmost severity. Neither on 
 the platform nor through the press will they gain the 
 public ear, if the party machine can prevent them. The 
 press is too much controlled by one or the other of the 
 great political parties. Those who are in office, make it 
 their business to assist in holding together that party to 
 which they are indebted for their offices. Those who 
 are out of office must carry the next election in order to 
 gain office. 
 
 Outside the great party machine are the larger por- 
 tion of the people, who are getting to feel, more and 
 more, either indifferent, discouraged, helpless, or dis- 
 gusted with repeated failures, compromises, and expedi- 
 ents, in lieu of the fulfilling of promises and pledges, or 
 expectations raised by the clever politician through the 
 vehement denunciation of past wrongs. A farmer, here 
 and there, may show dissatisfaction at all this. His pro- 
 called political economy.'' Legislators have as good a right as others 
 to their years of experimental schooling. And they also have a right, 
 as others have, to the plea for human fallibility. But they have no 
 right to practise political experiments, speculations, and expedients 
 at the expense of the people, and claim for their actions the appella- 
 tion of statesmanship. 
 
1 84 AMERICAN- FARMS. 
 
 testations (should he choose to make them) are not to 
 be heeded, if it can be avoided, though he make them 
 ever so loudly.' 
 
 The same old story is repeated over and over again. 
 We tacitly decide that either one or the other despotism 
 will rule, and rule in its own way, in defiance of the 
 objections and threatenings of the victimized. Our 
 whole political and social morality must be degenerating 
 under this rigime.^ 
 
 ' A few days ago the writer suggested to a legislator that we should 
 have more fanners in our Parliaments. He replied : " It is a hard - 
 place for a farmer, for the moment he rises in the House in their be- 
 half he is set upon by a half-dozen lawyers. " The Farm and Home 
 expressed similar views recently when referring to the action of one of 
 our legislative bodies — views which apply well to the general feelings 
 of politicians toward the farmer who runs the gauntlet of presuming 
 to mix in political matters — " Whenever the Senate could see a farm- 
 er's head, it hit it. " 
 
 ^ Recently said the Quebec Chronicle (Conservative) : " There are 
 honest men in both political camps, but the difficulty is to get them to 
 enter public life. It is the tactician who eventually comes to the 
 front, and success only crowns the efforts of the man who possesses an 
 elastic conscience. In the old days there used to be a strong public 
 opinion in the country. When the politicians went wrong there was 
 such a thing as keeping them from power and putting into their places 
 men of sterling integrity. Alas ! we have no public opinion nowa- 
 days worth the toss of a copper. Self-interest is the first law of 
 nature, and the premier who knows his man and understands the art 
 of buying, can have little difficulty in maintaining himself in power as 
 long as he has a mind to reign.'' 
 
 On the foregoing the St. John Telegraph (Liberal) remarks : " Has 
 it really come to this, that an honest politician cannot succeed, and 
 that there is no public opinion worth the toss of a copper ? We trust 
 it is not yet so bad as that. There is, no doubt, less honesty in poli- 
 tics than there was a quarter of a century ago, and vastly less of 
 public opinion. . . . What fate is in store for a country that will 
 not have honest men for rulers ? " 
 
THE FARMER LOSING HIS POLITICAL POWER. 185 
 
 Said George William Curtis, a few years ago, before 
 one of the universities of America : " The rural states- 
 men who founded the Republic saw, in a vision, a homo- 
 geneous and intelligent community, the peace and 
 prosperity and intelligence of the state reflected in the 
 virtue and wisdom of the government. But is this our 
 actual America ? Or a glimpse of Arcadia ? Is this the 
 United States of Plato's Republic ? Or Harrington's 
 Oceana ? Or Sir Thomas More's Utopia ? What are 
 the political maxims of the hour ? In Rome do as 
 Romans do. Fight fire with fire. Beat the devil with 
 his own weapons. Take men as they are ; and don't 
 affect superior goodness. Beware of the politics of the 
 moon ; and of Sunday-school statesmanship. This is 
 our current political wisdom ; and the results are 
 familiar. ' This is a nasty State,' cries the eager parti- 
 san, ' and I hope we have done enough nasty work to 
 carry it ! ' ' The conduct of the opposition,' says another, 
 ' was infamous. They resorted to every kind of base and 
 contemptible means, and, thank God ! we have beaten 
 them at their own game.' The majority is overthrown 
 by the political machinery intended to secure its will. 
 The machinery is oiled by corruption, and grinds the 
 honest majority to powder." 
 
 How well all this applies, at this very hour, to the 
 party politics of Canada as well as the United States, all 
 know too well. Either party in each country is ener- 
 getic in its vociferations against the corrupting influences 
 used by the other. Yet from all sides we hear that it is 
 preposterous to think of gaining power without using the 
 same corrupting means. However righteous the cause, 
 however direct its appeals to reason, however great the 
 interest of the people in its triumphs, it is the current 
 
1 86 AMERICAN FARMS. 
 
 political wisdom to ostracise public discussion, and to 
 favor the dependence upon petty bribes, secret influ- 
 ences, and pot-house arguments. 
 
 Knowledge of the fact that in less than fifteen years 
 in Canada, over seventy elections have been voided by 
 the courts of that country for corrupt practices, should 
 cause all its right-thinking people to blush for its political 
 impurity. 
 
 Even as late as thirty years ago, Simon Brown, the 
 politician, and gifted editor of the New England 
 Farmer of those days, had not lost hope for the future 
 of America, through the power of the rural population 
 to guide in wisdom and virtue the political, as well as the 
 social and economic destinies of the Republic. He saw 
 a future before the farmers of America as the proper 
 governors of the commonwealth. In January, 1859, he 
 said to them : " The people, the yeomanry, the dwellers 
 in the rural districts," — the readers of the New England 
 Farmer, and the like, must realize that they are the 
 legitimate rulers of the land, and act accordingly — must 
 take the reins of government into their own hands. 
 
 Every year sees the farmer with less political influence 
 than ever before. This certainly is a lamentable fact. 
 When the people of Greece got to look upon its rural 
 populations as unfit for any thing but drudgery, they 
 were preparing the Grecian Republic for its downfall. 
 
 This, then, is a first cause of the American farmer's 
 troubles, the neglect of his political rights and duties ; 
 others follow as consequences. 
 
CHAPTER II. 
 
 THE farmer's interest IN FREE TRADE IN NAT- 
 URAL PRODUCTS ONLY.' 
 
 I am not about to select that great interest connected with the 
 agriculture of this country, and call upon the landowners to relinquish 
 protection, unprepared at the same time to call upon other protected 
 classes to relinquish protection also. In the confidence that the prin- 
 ciple for which I contend is a just and wise one, I ask all protected 
 interests to make the sacrifice, if it be a sacrifice, which the appli- 
 cation of that principle will render necessary. — SiR Robert Peel, 
 1846. 
 
 From the columns of a valuable little farm paper — The 
 Farm and Home — we read the other day : " Most agri- 
 cultural products seem to be viewed as raw material. 
 This view appears to have largely permeated both politi- 
 cal parties. It is a view that appears destined to do 
 incalculable harm to our agriculture, if permitted to pre- 
 vail. . . . Most of his (the farmer's) products are as 
 really manufactured articles as are the clothes he wears. 
 Let us demand and compel a halt until this principle is 
 honestly recognized." This protest seems to us correct 
 and timely in the interest of the farmer. Is there not 
 quite as much reason for protecting the producer of so- 
 called "natural products," or products of the farm, as 
 the so-called manufactured articles ? 
 
 ' The substance of this chapter appeared in correspondence of the 
 writer, printed in the Halifax Morning Chronicle, November, 1888. 
 
 187 
 
1 88 AMERICAN FARMS. 
 
 Though the much-talked-of "Mills Bill," which the 
 American people have lately passed their verdict upon, 
 was certainly a free-trade measure in an international 
 sense ; we are not surprised that it found no more favor 
 with the agricultural classes. It offered them little relief 
 from the avarice of the monopolist, while it threatened 
 to take from a large class of farmers the little protection 
 they may have enjoyed. But it is hard to conceive it 
 possible that the farmers of the United States should 
 have suffered the impositions which have been gradually 
 put upon them, without louder protests ere this. We 
 find, however, that these exactions have gathered with 
 more or less increasing force for a century. 
 
 The " triumphant " Republican party boasts of having 
 done much in the interest of the people in increasing the 
 free list, from representing an import of only 14 millions 
 per annum twenty years ago, to representing 244 millions 
 at the present time. Into this free list has gone the 
 greater part of the slight protection which the farmer 
 may have had. While these changes have been made 
 against him, more important ones" have been made in 
 another direction. The duties which he has been 
 obliged to pay on manufactured articles, have risen 
 from about 25} per cent, in the decade 1850-60, to 38 
 per cent, in the decade 1860-70 ; to be raised again to 
 42j- per cent, in the decade 1870-80 ; and then again to 
 44 per cent, in the last seven years ; to finish up with 47 
 per cent, in 1887. The free list has been made to cover 
 such articles as are consumed by all, and productive of 
 revenue for the government treasury only — when taxed 
 — and the few articles of farm produce which may be 
 imported. Says Professor Taussig, in his " Tariff His- 
 tory of the United States " : " Step by step, in the 
 
THE FARMER'S INTEREST. 1 89 
 
 various tariff acts which have been passed since the war, 
 all the non-protective duties have been swept away, in 
 order that the protective duties might be retained. Arti- 
 cles like cocoa, pepper, cinnamon, cloves, olives, the 
 most natural and proper sources of revenue from import 
 duties, have been admitted free of duty. The decisive 
 step in this process was the tea and coffee act of 1872. 
 There are at present none other than protective duties in 
 our tariff." 
 
 Thus we find that, though the United States customs 
 free list has been extended, it has been by ignoring the 
 farmer's right to be considered a subject for protection, 
 while at the same time increasing protection to 
 manufactures. While these changes referring to the 
 tariff have been transpiring, the internal taxes upon 
 domestic manufacture laid in 1862, which amounted at 
 one time to $127,000,000, nullifying, to a slight extent, 
 the protection' given the manufactures, have been discon- 
 tinued. Besides this, the tax of $72,000,000, which was 
 taken yearly from the 460,170 persons who were found 
 to have incomes exceeding $1,000, to the aggregate 
 amount of $800,000,000, is no more collected. In fact, 
 this vast aggregate income, which has doubled or trebled 
 since the repeal of the tax, pays nothing for its protection 
 into the federal revenues, except in the individual cases 
 where the indirect taxes operate to the extent that the 
 living expenses exceed the $1,000. < 
 
 In the earliest days of Canadian protective legislation, 
 the agricultural interests were classed among those which 
 were to be directly guarded and vastly benefited by re- 
 strictive duties against the products of the foreign rival. 
 Many farmers were highly delighted at the prospect of 
 having the domestic markets all to themselves for the 
 
igO AMERICAN FARMS. 
 
 fruits of their orchards. The beef, pork, and hams of 
 the United States were to be kept out of the country, 
 and consequently the farmers would have a chance to 
 market their meats at profitable prices. The duty levied 
 against the import of corn and corn-meal, it was argued, 
 would give the farmers of the Maritime Provinces an 
 opportunity for reviving a once profitable industry — the 
 raising of coarse grains for the use of the fisherman and 
 lumberman. And the duty of fifty or seventy-five cents per 
 barrel on the import of wheat-flour was, it was claimed, 
 to cause the maritime consumers to depend upon the 
 lands of the Lower Provinces for their bread. No doubt 
 these flattering prospects prompted many a farmer to 
 cast in his lot with the party for protective legislation. 
 An enthusiastic advocate of this new policy, residing in 
 the western part of Nova Scotia, was so deeply impressed 
 with the probable happy results of protection to the 
 farmers' grain interests, that he immediately erected an 
 expensive mill for the grinding of domestic grains, im- 
 ported large quantities of seeds, and gave his farmer 
 friends every assistance possible in taking advantage of 
 this new wealth-producing policy. The mill ran little 
 more than a year, and then closed up. 
 
 The experience of the years which have passed since 
 the inauguration of the Canadian policy of protection 
 should do much to teach how delusive and unreliable are 
 the promises of meddlesome legislation for the control 
 of industry. Probably never before were the farmers of 
 Canada driven more to depend merely upon the pro- 
 duction of those articles which can be exported in com- 
 petition with all rivals, than at the present day. When 
 the manufacturers of cottons, of rubber goods, of agri- 
 cultural implements, and of the products of sugar refin- 
 
THE FARMER S INTEREST. I9I 
 
 eries and the like have found that foreign competitors 
 have continued to send in their productions in spite of 
 existing restrictions, the paternal government has always 
 been ready to answer their entreaties for more protec- 
 tion. Three times since the inception of the high tariff 
 in Canada, have the manufacturers of agricultural tools 
 been granted increased protection, in order that the for- 
 eign articles might be prohibited, and that the profit to 
 their labors might be increased. We ask — What has 
 been done for the Canadian farmer in this ? We think 
 the answer will be, all over Canada, " practically noth- 
 ing ! " 
 
 If it be desirable to increase the variety of industries, 
 it should be good policy to retain and augment those 
 already in existence. Why not increase the obstructions 
 to the import of beef, pork, and hams into Canada, until 
 the domestic productions have complete control of the 
 home markets ? Why allow the fruits of the orchards and 
 gardens of the United States to take any part in supply- 
 ing consumers in Canada ? Would it not be encouraging 
 as worthy a class of labor as that of the foreign workmen 
 and workwomen, who are being drawn to our factories ? 
 But what is really the character of the Canadian pro- 
 tective principles in reference to this very important 
 question, and what are the views of its guiding spirits ? 
 Sir John Macdonald, Premier of Canada, most as- 
 toundingly declares, that: "To the farmer free inter- 
 change of natural products (with foreign countries), 
 would, of course, be highly advantageous " ; but of the 
 manufacturer, he says : " Free trade in manufactures 
 would be disastrous for him at present." ' 
 
 Sir Leonard Tilley, at present Governor of New Bruns- 
 
 ' To the representative of the Pall Mall Gazette. 
 
192 AMERICAN FARMS. 
 
 wick, who has the honor of being one of the principal 
 framers of the national policy of Canada, which, it was 
 claimed, would foster and develop the industries of all 
 classes, now " favors a largely increased free list of the 
 natural products, and of certain kinds of manufactured 
 goods." 
 
 Sir Charles Tupper, late Finance Minister of Canada, 
 has admitted to having lately offered to enter into nego- 
 tia' ions with the United States Government for the pur- 
 po; eoof placing all natural products upon the free list 
 between the two countries. At the Cutlers' feast at 
 Shefiieldx England, September 5, t888, Sir Charles stated 
 that " they (the Conservatives of Canada) had always 
 been ready, as they were ready now, to extend their 
 commercial relations with them (the United States) with 
 regard to the natural products of the two countries." 
 
 Morci'ver, in debating the question of unrestricted 
 reciprecity before Parliament at Ottawa (1888), nearly 
 evfyy speaker on the government side of the House 
 fa».,a-ed absolute free trade in "natural products." 
 
 ' One said : " I am the son of a farmer, and I believe 
 in;'"urotectrng every individual when it is necessary he 
 sh(_ aid be protected. But I contend that, so far as the 
 farmers of Annapolis and Kings (in Nova Scotia) are 
 concerned, they do not want any protection." ' 
 
 FQlrther, the whole government press in Canada is 
 declaring the willingness of its party to enter into the 
 utmost reciprocity of trade in farm ' products with any 
 country willing for it. And is it not a provision of the 
 national policy act, that, whenever the United States 
 chooses to put natural products upon the free list, 
 Canada shall reciprocate ? Of course, to open thus the 
 'Mr. Mills, of Annapolis. 
 
THE FARMER'S INTEREST. 193 
 
 markets of Canada to the farm productions of the United 
 States, is to open such markets to the only competitors 
 worth considering. 
 
 The more that is known of American protection, 
 either in the United States or in Canada, the more it will 
 be found that its aims are not for the benefit of all 
 classes, but for a special class. Either this or protec- 
 tion is a delusion. It was well said by Sir John's organ, 
 the Toronto Empfre : " As far as the manufactuitr is 
 concerned, cheapening food (by imports), whi ,b3 the 
 country cannot raise in sufficient quantities, is a protec- 
 tive measure, not an abandonment of protect'on." We 
 presume this to be an authoritative exposition of the real 
 sentiments of the leading Canadian protectionists who 
 are giving the cause political guidance. Gradually the 
 farmer must be borne on to the conclusion, that the 
 national policy of Canada is not for his benefit and that 
 when the protectionist politician, whether innocently or 
 otherwise, signifies his willingness to support a poli y of 
 free trade in " natural products only," he is on> 'ho 
 would sacrifice the farmers for the benefit of the 
 manufacturers ! and that the protective policy of C; ida, 
 when properly looked into, like its prototype ix. the 
 United States, means protection for the manufacturers 
 and plutocracy, and for them only. 
 
 If it be contended the farmers, through protecti^ 1 to 
 manufacturers, gain indirectly, by the increase of Lome 
 markets, we answer : Would not universal free trade in 
 natural products, or farm products, be making these very 
 markets free markets for the farm products of the worid ? 
 If this is so, then what becomes of the theory of building 
 up home markets for the farmers ? 
 
 The Hon. Charles Tupper, in a speech at Beaverton, 
 9 
 
194 AMERICAN FARMS. 
 
 in September, 1888, gave utterance to most extraordinary 
 views on this subject. He said : '' I say again, that we 
 have every reason, from the policy of the (United States) 
 Democratic party, to believe that we can have virtually 
 the old reciprocal relations and still keep the Canadian 
 market for the Canadian manufacturer and the Canadian 
 farmer as well." How these two opposite things could be 
 accomplished we are unable to understand : keep the 
 home market for the farmer, and at the same time throw 
 it open to free competition." 
 What has been done by protection to make a home 
 
 ' The following, from the St. John Sun of August 23, l88g, states 
 the position of the government of Canada exactly : " In declaring 
 their approval of reciprocity in natural products, therefore, govern- 
 ment journals are not hedging, but simply restating a position from 
 which they have never withdrawn." 
 
 The opposition press are equally correct in their claim that no 
 public man in Canada has ever opposed ' ' free trade in natural products 
 'only " ; therefore the fanners' interests are not represented in Par- 
 liament. 
 
 The following is the standing proposition appended to the Canadian 
 customs act of 1879 : " Any or all of the foUovring things, that is to 
 say, animals of all kinds, green fruits, hay, straw, bran, seeds of all 
 kinds, vegetables (including potatoes and other roots), plants, trees and 
 shrubs, coal and coke, salt, hops, wheat, peas and beans, barley, rye, 
 oats, Indian corn, buckwheat and all other grain, flour of wheat and 
 flour of rye, Indian meal and oatmeal and flour and meal of any other 
 grain, butter, cheese, fish (salted or smoked), lard, tallow, meats 
 (fresh, salted, or smoked), and lumber may be imported into Canada 
 free of duty, or at a less rate of duty than is provided by this act, 
 upon proclamation of the Governor-in-Council, which may be issued 
 whenever it appears to his satisfaction that similar articles from Can- 
 ada may be imported into the United States free of duty, or at a rate 
 of duty not exceeding that payable on the same under such proclama- 
 tion when imported into Canada.'' This offer has been modified 
 slightly, but not in the interest of the farmer. 
 
THE PARMER'S INTEREST. I95 
 
 market for the farmers of New England ? From thou- 
 sands of miles away to the West, the consumers of New 
 England are being supplied with farm produce. " This 
 4,000,000 of people use grain," but 96 per cent, of their 
 breadstuffs are sent in from the West. The West sends 
 them annually upwards of 500,000 tons of grain, $20,- 
 000,000 of breadstuffs, $3,000,000 of butter, $55,000,000 
 of provisions, $45,000,000 of wool, besides hides and 
 other farm products. In all, not less than $200,000,000 
 of farm produce per year (or equal to upwards of $300 
 for each individual employed in manufacturing in New 
 England) is supplied by the West to the consumers of 
 New England.' 
 
 In the Maritime Provinces manufacturing towns may 
 spring up, but any increase of demand for farm produce, 
 consequent upon this, will be met by the Western or 
 Ontario producer. We look over the advertising col- 
 umns of the dailies of the manufacturing towns of New 
 Brunswick at one time, and we find that the markets are 
 being supplied by Ontario apples, at another by apples 
 from the United States. And yet the Nova Scotia 
 farmer looks to England for a market for his apples. Is 
 not the home-market theory a delusion ? '^ 
 
 Driven from one horn of the dilemma to the other, 
 protectionists will tell us that the policy is necessary for 
 the purpose of binding the country together, to create a 
 national sentiment. Such schemes maybe necessary where 
 rulers and people are in a semi-civilized state. But in 
 
 ' Mr. James G. Blaine to the Western farmers. 
 
 ' Including grain and flour, the annual shipments of the products 
 of the farm from the Upper Provinces to Nova Scotia, novi amount 
 to $2,500,000; in other than grain and flour $100,000 annually; 
 whereas such shipments from Nova Scotia to the Upper Provinces 
 has not amounted to $50,000 in a quarter of a century. 
 
196 AMERICAN PARMS. 
 
 order that a nation may be created is it necessary for an 
 intelligent people to be moulded into the required con- 
 dition through the existence of a fiscal policy that is 
 destitute of the principles of equity, that is scientifically 
 and economically false, — a policy towards which our best 
 feelings must be in constant rebellion ? Is this the true 
 national policy for civilized beings ? 
 
 And we may also ask. Is it a true and upright policy to 
 strive to warp any intelligent community into any politi- 
 cal change through the workings of a false fiscal policy? 
 
 What does protection undertake to do for the indus- 
 trial classes ? We have but to glance over the speeches 
 and writings of its advocates to learn that it assumes the 
 office of protecting labor, to secure to industrial classes a 
 profitable market for their productions that national 
 labor may not be exposed to the keen competition of the 
 foreign rival. This being its aim, why should this pro- 
 tection not be extended to the laborers who till the farms, 
 who cultivate the orchards, and who tend the flocks ? 
 That this object, the creation of a necessity for labor, 
 without regard to its effect upon the masses, is a prin- 
 ciple of the Canadian national policy, may be seen in 
 many ways. We have an illustration in the peculiar 
 sugar duties, which cause the import of raw sugars, 
 which require refining, from countries to which she ex- 
 ports nothing, instead of encouraging the importation of 
 sugars which may not require refining, and from coun- 
 tries which buy her natural products from her. 
 
 We must certainly admit that labor may not compose 
 the total exchange value of productions, though it does 
 in the main, but we contend that in our farm productions 
 labor should be considered as important, both as regards 
 its nature and extent, as in any of the manufactures for 
 
THE FARMER'S INTEREST. ig/ 
 
 which the farmer's productions are eventually exchanged. 
 Taking this view as being undoubtedly correct, we are 
 unable to understand why the laboring farmer, who 
 throws on the market his barley, his oats, his apples, his 
 small fruits, his beef and his pork, should be exposed to 
 a world-wide competition to reduce the exchange value 
 of his labor to the minimum ; while, on the contrary, the 
 manufacturer's labor must be so protected that he may 
 be- enabled to force consumers to pay the maximum price 
 for his hours of labor. For, is it not the admission of 
 the meddlesome legislator, that the tendency of free trade 
 is to reduce the price of articles exposed to free competi- 
 tion ? If not, why favor the free import of raw materials 
 in the interest of the manufacturers ? 
 
 But we will go a little into particulars to show how 
 protection in Canada has served the agricultural interests. 
 In the fiscal year ending with June 30, 1887, the free im- 
 ports of goods classed " animals and their products, and 
 agricultural products," composed about 6^ per cent, of 
 the total imports into Canada. The three fourths of a 
 million dollars of fruits, seeds, and trees, lately put upon 
 the free list, increase these classes to above 6f per cent, 
 of the total import. 
 
 In the fiscal year 1887, grain and grain products, ani- 
 mals, butter, cheese, lard, meats, sausage casings, vege- 
 tables, tomatoes, canned vegetables, seeds, trees, and 
 green fruits, to the amount pf $4,908,145, were imported, 
 on which, within a fraction of $800,000 in duties was 
 levied. To this dutiable import, by adding the $6,437,- 
 219 free imports of farm products (omitting tobacco), we 
 have $11,345,264 to represent the imports of farm produce 
 for that year. By a little calculating it will be found that 
 these imports paid about 7 per cent, into the treasury, and 
 
198 AMERICAN FARMS. 
 
 that the placing of about three quarters of a million 
 dollars' worth of fruit, seed, and tree imports upon the 
 free list reduces the farmer's protection down to about 
 6 per cent. Small as these figures representing the 
 farmer's protection seem, it must also be borne in mind, 
 that a large portion of even these small figures is made up 
 of protective imposts on canned goods (really protection 
 to manufacturers). 
 
 While the tendency in the past has been so much in the 
 direction of putting farm products on the free list, it has 
 been also in the direction of rapidly increasing the pro- 
 tective duties upon the farmer's articles of consumption. 
 In 1867, the Canadian tariff gave the manufacturer 15 per 
 cent, protection, and in 1877, 17^ per cent. In 1881, the 
 tariff had grown in the interest of the manufacturers to 
 about 27 per cent., calculating on the dutiable list only, 
 and about 23!- per cent, if the free list of manufactures 
 be also taken into account. In 1887, the average protec- 
 tion to manufacturers was about 30 per cent, on goods 
 classed dutiable, and 27^ per cent, on dutiable and free 
 manufactured goods combined. For 1888, it will not be 
 less than 33 per cent, on dutiable manufactures, as the 
 tariff for this year has been vastly increased." 
 
 Canadian protection has worked about as the following 
 table shows : 
 
 Against 
 1879. Assumed fair play all round. the 
 
 fanner as 
 1881. To the farmer 8 %, to the manufacturer 27 ^ . . 3f to i 
 
 1887. To the farmer 7 %, to the manufacturer 30 ^ . . 4I to I 
 
 1888. To the farmer 6 %, to the manufacturer about 33 %,^ 5^ to- 1 
 
 The average Canadian protectionist seems to be per- 
 fectly satisfied with this one-sided protection. We had a 
 
 ' This prediction has been fully confirmed. 
 
 '^ Over 500,000 families in Canada are depending directly upon 
 agriculture for a living, and less than one fifth of this number upon 
 
THE FARMER'S INTEREST. 199 
 
 conspicuous illustration of this satisfaction in the remarks 
 of the protectionist journal, the Halifax Mail (May i 
 1888), relative to the repeal of the Canadian fruit duties, 
 in an editorial entitled, " Cheaper Fruits and Berries." 
 It said : " These changes in the tariff will place within 
 the reach of our citizens a more bountiful supply of 
 cheaper berries and fruits during the ensuing season.'' 
 The question arises, if fruits and other so-called nat- 
 ural products are made " cheaper " and more " bountiful 
 in supply," and placed more " within the reach of our 
 citizens " by reason of such freedom, why should not the 
 same results follow to the farmer citizen, if manufactures 
 were put upon the free list ? If articles are placed 
 " within reach of citizens " by being made " cheaper " 
 through the removal of tariff obstructions, we have to 
 conclude that the consumers of such articles have here- 
 tofore paid the duties, and have by these removals gained 
 an advantage as consumers, without corresponding loss 
 in income as producers. If so, why should not the 
 "cheapening" of manufactures by free trade in them, 
 " place them in more bountiful supply " and " within 
 the reach of the farmers," or increase the farmers' advan- 
 tages as consumers, without diminishing their power as 
 producers ? It can hardly be said that the home supply of 
 manufactures is greater than the home supply of " fruits 
 and berries." ' If the increase of price in farm products 
 
 manufacturing ; yet her customs laws collect less than $i,ooo,cx5o 
 upon the import of products which come at all into competition with 
 her farmers ; whereas over |i3,cx)0,ooo are collected from foreign 
 manufactures. 
 
 ' The fruit growers of Nova Scotia have now (January, 1890) a 
 petition before the Dominion government asking for a reimposition of 
 fruit duties, but even the representatives of the fruit-raising constitu- 
 encies have not courage, at this date, to define their real economic 
 views upon this matter. 
 
200 AMERICAN FARMS. 
 
 through tariff legislation for the protection of the farmer 
 cannot be met by the other classes through the indirect 
 benefits which protection is said to produce, how can the 
 farmer expect benefit through protection to the manufac- 
 turers ? Moreover, if nothing can be done by protecting 
 farm products and other natural products in the way of 
 bringing laborers into the country, or to keep them in 
 the country to raise such natural products, and thereby 
 create a home market for manufacturers, how is the 
 farmer to gain a benefit by protection to the manufac- 
 turers ? Prosperous farmers mean decidedly good home 
 markets for the blacksmith, shoemaker, carriage-builder, 
 the house-builder, brick-maker, the school teacher, the 
 clergyman, and the merchant. 
 
 The protectionists are undoubtedly right in the admis- 
 sion that an extension of free trade in natural products 
 only, means an increase of protection to domestic manu- 
 factures. Free traders who contend to the contrary, are 
 of a very questionable class ; though, to use the words 
 of Bastiat, " there is in political economy no more gen- 
 erally accredited sophism than this." In serving as 
 argument in the hands of the pretended free-trade 
 school, says Bastiat, " its most mischievous tendencies 
 are called into action. For a good cause suffers much 
 less in being attacked than in being badly defended." 
 Yet, not only are the avowed protectionists willing for 
 this one-sided trade, but some of the most prominent 
 figures in the so-called free-trade party in Canada, as 
 well as in the United States, are advocates of such a 
 system. 
 
 It certainly appears obvious enough, that an extension 
 of freedom as to the importation of raw materials and of 
 food necessaries, gives the manufacturer a new advan- 
 
THE FARMER'S INTEREST. 20I 
 
 tage m producing cheaply, without, in the least, com- 
 pelling him to sell his productions at lower prices. On 
 the other hand, it is evident that every additional article 
 placed upon the list to be really protected, must, in a 
 measure, reduce the chances for the monopolist to pocket 
 monopoly profits, without contributing to the monopoly 
 profits of others. A duty which raises the price of agri- 
 cultural ' implements, discourages agriculture. A duty 
 which increases the price of agricultural fertilizers, dis- 
 courages the production of potatoes, grains, grasses, etc. 
 On the other hand, a duty which increases the price of 
 raw materials and food necessaries, discourages the man- 
 ufacture of cottons, boots, clothing, hardware, and sugar 
 refining ; but why should these manufactures be granted 
 an assurance of success at the expense of the farmer ? 
 
 The protective system cannot be fair all round, unless 
 it protects all round. Though it is perfectly clear that 
 to protect all round is to increase the price of production 
 all round, until the object sought — the building up of 
 special industries — is defeated. Moreover, to increase 
 prices all round, or the cost of general production, is to 
 destroy the chances to supply foreign consumers. This 
 latter assumption is conspicuously shown in the continual 
 decline in Canada's exports of many lines of manufac- 
 ture since the adoption of her high-tax policy. And yet 
 the farmer is not true to the interests of his class, if he 
 does not demand either free trade all round, or protection 
 all round. 
 
 The protectionists can hardly contend that the farmers 
 are benefited by being permitted to import some lines 
 of food, trees, seeds, etc., from other countries, instead of 
 producing these themselves, or buying them at protected 
 prices from their neighbors. Though no doubt all are 
 
202 AMERICAN' FARMS. 
 
 benefited when the consumers — and all are consumers — 
 are permitted to procure every article required, from the 
 place where most cheaply produced. For if the manu- 
 facturers find it is profitable to rob one another a little, 
 for the chance to rob the multitudes a good deal, why 
 should not the farmers, or any of the cultivators of the 
 soil, find it equally profitable ? 
 
 When England, in her old 'protective days, sought by 
 this means to serve the interests of her farmers, she even 
 prohibited the use of cotton goods at one time, because 
 their use, it was thought, would sacrifice the farmers' 
 wool industries. It might be asked, why allow free 
 cotton to come into Canada to interfere with the con- 
 sumption of wool in the manufacture of light woollen 
 goods ? Or, why not force, by increase of protection, 
 Canadian consumers of grapes to depend upon her own 
 vineyards, as England did in the early days of her his- 
 tory ? Would it not be quite as much within the scope 
 of reason, as the efforts which are being put forth to 
 stimulate the growth of many of her highly protected 
 manufactures ? 
 
 Sydney Smith's description of the tax system which 
 prevailed in England at the end of the French war, pre- 
 sents a picture of an ideal condition of universal taxa- 
 tion, which as well might serve the purpose of an ideal 
 of universal protection : " Takes upon every article 
 which enters the mouth, or covers the back, or is placed 
 under the feet. Taxes upon every thing which it is 
 pleasant to see, hear, feel, smell, or taste. Taxes upon 
 warmth, locomotion, light, and every thing that comes 
 from abroad or is grown at home. Taxes on every thing 
 on earth or under the earth. Taxes on the raw material, 
 taxes on every fresh value that is added to it by the. in- 
 
THE FARMER'S INTEREST. 203 
 
 dustry of man." Certainly, with such a system, few 
 would be able to escape the privilege of at least paying 
 taxes. 
 
 The great difficulty, however, in the way of a fair deal 
 in a policy of protection, or of monopoly, was pointed 
 out by Mr. Stanley Jevons. " There would," remarked 
 he, "be a certain fairness in the establishment of monop- 
 olies if all trades were equally able to combine and tax 
 each other. The result, of course, would be very absurd 
 and very pernicious, but it would be equal ; as a matter 
 of fact, however, those who most need combination to 
 better their fortunes are just those who are the least able 
 to carry it out." This is true enough, and the farmers 
 of Canada, as those of the United States, are among 
 those who cannot combine either under free trade or 
 protection as protection is administered. After all, 
 what do wool duties amount to in protecting the United 
 States farmer ? Measured by the trade and navigation 
 returns, they amount annually to about f 1.70 per farmer 
 (his whole protection amounting to not more than $3.00 
 per capita). Measured in the same way, the average 
 manufacturer gets not far from f 100. With the best 
 that can be done for him, the United States farmer can 
 get but the merest trifle through such means. 
 
 That protection to the Canadian farmer can accom- 
 plish little, unless each province or, in fact, each county 
 could be made a protected unit, is shown by the fact 
 that even with the slight duties she imposes against the 
 import of farm produce, the import of this line of goods 
 is only about $1 to $50 produced, while she is able to 
 export $1 to every $12 produced. So slight is the ad- 
 vantage which the Canadian farmer takes of the little 
 protection allowed him, that the foreign producer makes 
 
204 AMERICAN FARMS. 
 
 but slight efforts to jump over it. On the other hand, 
 notwithstanding the high-tariff wall placed against foreign 
 manufactures, $i is imported to each $7 produced, while 
 the home market for manufactures is made so profitable 
 to the home producer, by reason of forced tributes from 
 the home consumers, that less than $1 finds its way from 
 the country to the $100 produced.' 
 
 In fact, since it is requisite that a protected area be 
 even more than world-wide in extent, to save the farmer 
 from the avarice of the manufacturing combines, and 
 extremely small to be of any service in enabling farmers 
 to combine for their advantage, the question of what would 
 be a just and equal system of protection seems a difficult 
 problem to solve. And yet, if protection is to be the 
 order of the day, it is the protectionist legislators' duty 
 to devise some scheme that will give the farmer his full 
 share of advantages." 
 
 The miller wants $1 or $1.50 per barrel duty on flour. 
 His right is just as good to 20 per cent, protection as 
 that of the manufacturer of shovels to 35 per cent, and 
 free raw materials. The pork-packer wants $4 per 
 barrel duty on pork. He has as good a right to it as the 
 manufacturer of scythes to 50 per cent., and so has the 
 apple producer to $1 per barrel. Only, in these changes, 
 the farmers should see that an undoubted portion of the 
 legalized plunder really comes into their hands." 
 
 ' Measured by Canada's trade and navigation returns in terms of 
 money, the farmers of Canada get less than $1.10 protection per 
 capita, the manufacturers more than $130 per capita. 
 
 ' When an effort is made to apply protection equitably, it is then 
 seen what a fribble, a burlesque, a farce, it really Is. 
 
 ^ Not a few, of even those who pass for free traders, contend that 
 only articles of luxury should bear taxes, but we must remember that 
 great aggregates of capital produced through a whisky or a cigar- 
 
THE FARMER'S INTEREST. 20S 
 
 If free trade is the watchword, then let it be for free 
 trade all round, the only true policy — a watchword for 
 reform that means the extermination of a vicious system 
 on all sides. 
 
 When England, in the famous free-trade struggle, 
 removed or lessened the duties on articles of food, the 
 same was done by foreign manufactured goods. Sir 
 Robert Peel, in the onset of the great parliamentary 
 struggle of 1846, sounded no rallying call to selfish inter- 
 ests. " In the confidence," said he, " that the principle 
 for which I contend is a just and wise one, I ask all 
 protected interests to make the sacrifice, if it be a 
 sacrifice, which the application of that principle will 
 render necessary." 
 
 Yet there are in England to-day, as there always will 
 be, manufacturers who would have duties put upon im- 
 ported manufactures ; but the farmers will not let them. 
 So should it be with the farmers of America. 
 
 So long as free trade goes no further than free trade in 
 "natural products only," so long will the blight to the 
 farming interests of America spread and increase — so 
 long will the farmer continue to be the victim of the 
 politician and the manufacturer. 
 
 manufacturing monopoly, fostered by indirect taxation, may be a far 
 greater menace to the general good, than any advantage that the 
 farmers can possibly gain by protection from the consumers of their 
 products. 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 
 FREE TRADE MAY BE SELFISH AS WELL AS PRO- 
 TECTION ; OR, THE INEFFICIENCY OF 
 FREE-TRADE MOVEMENTS. 
 
 In working out our ideas of justice to the farmers of 
 America, in reference to the matters treated of in the 
 chapters on taxation, and on free trade in natural products 
 only, we arrived at the conclusion that it is quite within 
 the range of possibility for what passes for free trade to 
 be altogether selfish in its aims ; that it is within the 
 scope of probability that compromises will any day be 
 made, as they have been in the past, between the manu- 
 facturers and their political friends, and those interested 
 in commerce and their friends, by which free trade will 
 appear to have scored a triumph for the people, though 
 the very opposite is the actual result. By these com- 
 promises the evils of protection may not be lessened one 
 iota, or the load of taxation be removed in the slightest 
 degree ; may, in fact, be increased. 
 
 Free-trade movements, to be successes, must take 
 higher grounds than they have done hitherto ; they must 
 aim at justice to all ; equality in the benefits of the 
 greater freedom, and equality in the bearings of taxation. 
 These are the matters of vital interest to the great 
 majority of the people. The commercial questions in- 
 volved are of great importance ; little, however, com- 
 
 3o6 
 
INEFFICIENC Y OF FREE- TRA DE MO VEMENTS. 207 
 
 pared with the others just named. Look where you may 
 over America to-day, and where is party to be found 
 standing by the people as it should in this particular ? 
 Is there a political policy working which offers a shadow 
 of hope to the farmers for the future ? All that is before 
 them appears little else than the selfish outgrowth of 
 moneyed and partisan interests, and, as such, must be 
 barren of results favorable to the people. 
 
BOOK VII. 
 
 THE PHYSICAL, MENTAL, SOCIAL, AND MORAL 
 CONSIDERATIONS INVOLVED. 
 
 But the wealth of a nation depends in the long run upon the con- 
 ditions, mental and bodily, of the people of whom it consists, and the 
 experience of all mankind declares that a race of men sound in soul 
 and limb can be bred and reared only in the exercise of plough and 
 spade, in the free air and sunshine, with country enjoyments and 
 amusements, never amidst foul drains and smoke blacks and the 
 eternal clank of machinery. — James Anthony Froude. 
 
CHAPTER I. 
 
 THE DIVERGENCE OF INTELLECTUAL DEVELOPMENT 
 
 FROM A BASIS OF PHYSICAL STAMINA, 
 
 AND ITS CONSEQUENCES. 
 
 The men who figured prominently in laying the 
 foundation of America's political, social, and industrial 
 structure were no weaklings. They were men of nerve, 
 muscle, and vitality. Their habits and exercises were 
 such as to stimulate the growth of these most desirable 
 functions. The claim is now frequently made that the 
 majority are becoming more and more mental, emotional, 
 nerveless, and effeminate. The whole tendency of the 
 country's varied national life is undoubtedly in the 
 direction of increasing in the characteristics of its people 
 these most undesirable changes. " Functional nervous 
 disorders " are increasingly frequent among the in-door 
 classes of our civilization everywhere, " and specially so 
 in all the Northern and Eastern States of America, where 
 the sufferers may be found in nearly every brain-working 
 household." ' It may indicate a future far from happy. 
 
 Much as we may differ as to the nature of mental 
 faculties, we can, with a considerable degree of reliability, 
 gather data from which to prove that physical perfection 
 in man means also corresponding completeness of brain 
 power ; that when there is a retrogression in the first 
 
 ' Dr. George W. Beard. 
 211 
 
212 AMERICAN FARMS. 
 
 particular eventually there must also be one in the 
 second. In all great movements of the world, in the 
 growth of nations, or in great crises, it has been the men 
 of well-developed physique who have triumphed. The 
 men of Greece took sufficient interest in the tilling of the 
 soil to make it a first medium for fostering the growth 
 of muscle and sinew. They practised also such manly 
 exercises as made them the admiration of the world, as 
 well as fitted them to be, as they were, the rulers of their 
 time. We may say more than this of the Roman, whose 
 national industry, in their palmy days, was husbandry. 
 The brawny, deep-chested Englishman and the sinewy 
 Scotchman have made themselves masters wherever they 
 have planted themselves. 
 
 As a rule, just in proportion as a people have become 
 effeminate in their habits and exercises, so have they 
 degenerated in mental capacity. Observations have 
 proved that the great man is more likely to be greater 
 in stature, more symmetrically proportioned, and of more 
 pleasing physical appearance than his contemporaries ; 
 while such a one will be governed by a brain of full 
 physical development.' Science also claims, with good 
 reason, that wherever a proper equilibrium has been 
 maintained through a due exercise of the physical and 
 mental functions, there the tendency has been towards a 
 constant improvement in the types of men. And when 
 the reverse has been the case, there has been experi- 
 enced a marked deterioration. Says Herbert Spencer : 
 " Each function has some relation, direct or indirect, to 
 the needs of life. Then the complete life is one in which 
 all functions are exercised to their normal capacity, and 
 this can only take place in the physically developed man." " 
 
 ' Dr. Woods Hutchinson. 
 
INTELLECTUAL DEVELOPMENT. 213 
 
 It follows that, as few, if any, occupations are better 
 calculated to develop the physical structure than work 
 upon the soil, and at the same time offer a limitless field 
 for the most useful as well as the most pleasurable 
 mental training, we must conclude that the farmer, of all 
 others, should have a healthy, enduring brain. In fact, 
 his occupation should offer the medium through which 
 the highest development of the physical and mental may 
 be united in force for the production of the perfectly 
 developed man. 
 
 " Once let the human race be cut off from personal 
 contact with the soil ; once let the conventionalities and 
 artificial restrictions of so-called civilization interfere 
 with the healthful simplicity of nature, and decay is 
 certain." ' 
 
 Consequently, how immensely important may be our 
 dependence upon rural life — the farmer's well-developed 
 brain — for supplying whatever may be true and satisfying 
 in our present condition, and also for the continuance of 
 civilization itself ! 
 
 Therefore, since science and the history of the growth 
 and development of nations testify to the vast importance 
 of physical completeness as a basis of brain power, and 
 that farm life is most conducive to this end, we require a 
 numerous body of tillers of the soil to supply our 
 national brain capacity. 
 
 The fable of " Tellus, the Giant Son of the Earth," in 
 his valiant struggle with Hercules, and his final defeat 
 when deprived of contact with his " mother earth," is 
 certainly a striking parable of the condition of the human 
 family when the vast majority take no part in rural pur- 
 suits and the manly exercises. The Prince of Darkness 
 
 ' Dr. Woods Hutchinson. 
 
214 AMERICAN FARMS. 
 
 could take no better course to defeat man's progress and 
 subdue the earth to himself, than by depriving one after 
 another of intimate contact with their mother, the earth. 
 
 If it be health that is desired for the people (taking 
 another view of the subject), compare a procession of 
 cotton operatives pouring out of a cotton-mill in Law- 
 rence and Lowell, with an equal number of farmers' sons 
 and daughters as they are found in our country, and 
 we will see nothing in the former of physical appearance 
 to cause us to wish that the rural classes may become 
 manufacturers. 
 
 In 1886, there was published in Massachusetts g.n in- 
 teresting collection of facts relative to the average dura- 
 tion of life among the several occupations, covering a 
 period of more than thirty years. The average farmer 
 died at 66 years of age, the judge at 64, lawyers at 56, 
 physicians at 55, sheriffs and policemen at 52, while 
 milliners and factory girls died at 39, clerks and book- 
 keepers at 36, and plumbers and carvers at 35. In 
 the same year (1886), Dr. C. W. Chancoles, in a paper 
 read before the American Public-Health Association, 
 stated that stone-cutters, both in Europe and America, 
 on an average, do not live beyond 36 years, while knife 
 and iile grinders die at 35, edge-tool grinders at 32, razor 
 grinders at 31, and grinders of forks at 29. Of the 100 
 sick, of the various manufacturing industries, the pro- 
 portion of consumptives is quite suggestive : carpenters 
 14, cigarmakers 36, stone-cutters 36, steel grinders 40, 
 brush-makers 49, cotton, hemp, and flax weavers 60 ; file- 
 makers 62, needle-makers 70. 
 
 With such facts as these for guidance, both statesmen 
 and people should pause before tempting the young of 
 the rural classes to the manufacturing occupations. A 
 
INTELLECTUAL DEVELOPMENT. 2:5 
 
 week in the year does not pass that the remains of human 
 beings, below the meridian of life, are not conveyed from 
 the great manufacturing centres to their early homes in 
 the rural districts ; stricken down just as they should be 
 entering on the most useful efforts of their lives. While 
 one after another is guided back to the country settle- 
 ments in the United States, others go to their sorrowing 
 relatives in the Provinces, some to Quebec, others to 
 Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, and not a few to the 
 little Island of the Gulf. Many of these leave behind 
 them children in tender years, to become, perhaps, a 
 burden upon the old grandparents ; or worse, to drift 
 into the slums of the cities, to be lost in vice. Go into a 
 careful analysis of the causes which have tempted the 
 young country people away from their rural homes in 
 Canada, to seek new ones in the Great Republic (a popu- 
 lar subject for discussion), and in the majority of cases 
 it will be found that it has not been from a desire to 
 change their political allegiance, or because of the laws 
 of their country, that they have fled from it, so much as 
 from a desire to change their occupation. The effects of 
 the false politico-economic teachings of the time had 
 reached them, and had rendered them incapable of 
 appreciating the merits of their occupation. From the 
 politician, the manufacturer, and even the college pro- 
 fessor, they were told that an agricultural people could 
 never become great, and this poisoned their minds and 
 unsettled them. They learned from these authorities 
 that it was beneath a people of spirit to cultivate pota- 
 toes, and to tend the dairy, especially with a view of 
 supplying foreign customers with the productions from 
 them ; and they took the most speedy way of casting off 
 such an occupation. 
 
2l6 AMERICAN FARMS. 
 
 Though our city cousins may still be a good deal prone 
 to look upon their rustic relations as rather stupid and 
 unintellectual, it is well for them to know that natural 
 conditions are all on the side of the countryman. And 
 certainly the countryman should realize more fully what 
 are his possibilities. The feeling which generally pre- 
 vails, however, makes it preposterous for even the lead- 
 ing farmers of America to think of taking a place in 
 society with the equally prosperous of other classes. 
 
 In business concerns we have regular meetings of our 
 Board of Trade, in all our great commercial centres, to 
 which it is not at all uncommon for lawyers, doctors, 
 manufacturers, and newspaper editors to be invited to 
 take part in debating questions that may affect the rural 
 classes most deeply. But when are farmers requested 
 to become members of these societies, or to give their 
 views on the matters discussed? It is true, that the 
 Grange organizations — societies which should have a 
 welcome in every rural district — are beginning to give 
 the farmer some prominence ; through this medium, he 
 should voice his sentiments and desires with effect. Yet 
 the farmer is considered rather out of his senses, when 
 he presumes to match his intellectual faculties with 
 others ; and, in fact, his want of success is frequently 
 attributed to his lack of ability. 
 
 Have not the majority of our most able and useful 
 public men, in all the walks of life, been bred on the farm ? 
 Are not our most advanced institutions of learning pro- 
 vided with their brightest intellects from the country 
 families ? We think few will undertake to deny this 
 claim for the country. Said Emerson : " The great men 
 are not in the halls triumphing, but in the fields work- 
 ing. . . The city is recruited from the country. . . . 
 
INTELLECTUAL DEVELOPMENT. 21/ 
 
 The city would have died out, rotted, and exploded long 
 ago, unless it were recruited from the country." The 
 city of to-day was the country of yesterday. 
 
 The tendency of the time is evidently in the direction 
 of constantly decreasing the number of those who have 
 effectual contact with the soil, and increasing the num- 
 ber who would be mere parasites upon those who re- 
 main, reducing the worst victimized to the mere exercise 
 of their animal powers. It is quite frequently contended 
 by students of ethnology, that slavery was a necessity of 
 early times, in order that a few might be enabled to have 
 the leisure necessary for thought and for mental growth. 
 To-day, all kinds of devices are set on foot to tempt the 
 tillers of the soil into permitting others to do their 
 thinking for them. They, in effect say : "You work 
 and I think." 
 
 While the farmer's income is not increased, most other 
 classes combine and force an increase of theirs. They 
 tell us that mental giants must not be forced to do man- 
 ual labor, and that mental workers must have all the edu- 
 cating influences possible at their disposal, and if their 
 services are procured, the recompense must be com- 
 mensurate with a satisfaction of these conditions ; which 
 amounts to this, that those who in most cases have to 
 meet these conditions must work a little harder, with the 
 hope that eventually an indirect benefit will follow. For 
 instance, our governments in effect are great armies of 
 parasites, which are continually creating some new plan 
 for making places for additions to their numbers. That 
 these new ones may be supported, the supporting class 
 must work a little harder, and have, for satisfaction, the 
 consoling assurance that a new batch has been created 
 to do their thinking. 
 
2l8 AMERICAN FARMS. 
 
 Granted that there may have been a necessity in prim- 
 itive times for a portion of the human family to gain 
 opportunities for thought, have not the conditions 
 changed, when cunning must be resorted to to effect 
 this object ? Is it true that workers cannot think, and 
 that thinkers cannot work ? Is not the outcome of such a 
 condition to create, on one side, indolent, enervated 
 thinkers ; and on the other side, only working machines, 
 who have bartered away their right to think — they who 
 should be in mind, as well as in body, as great as any of 
 God's creatures ? 
 
 It is well that we should have our mental giants ; but 
 those who have become the greatest in this way have 
 been self-supporting, self-sacrificing men. There is 
 danger in the sweeping away of the grand opportunities 
 for a union of the mental and physical forces which rural 
 life offers. Shall our cities, like the rotted-out civiliza- 
 tions of old, swell to overflowing with the indigent, the 
 idle, and the voluptuous ? Shall the edict again go forth 
 — " You kill while I eat ; you work while I think," — and 
 the freemen again depend upon martial exercise and the 
 slaughtering of men for the stimulation of physical de- 
 velopment ? 
 
 With all that is being done through inventions for the 
 saving of labor and the utilization of natural forces, there 
 should be an ever increasing margin for mental exercise. 
 It is only a true condition which favors this, and it is 
 only a true condition whicH finds these necessary proofs 
 of progress dispersed through the whole people ; and it 
 is only a true condition where all who are able bear some- 
 thing of labor for their physical benefit, if for no other. 
 Emerson thought the ideal condition one in which man 
 was enabled to have the detachment and the individuality 
 
INTELLECTUAL DEVELOPMENT. 219 
 
 which is only possible in the country, with the intel- 
 lectual stimulus which is only possible in the city. But 
 this union of forces can only have healthy and enduring 
 development where a basis of physical stamina is in- 
 sured, and this basis is in the country. Then we must 
 come to the conclusion that whatever tends to make one 
 great division of the human family exclusively brain- 
 workers, and another great division exclusively manual 
 laborers, is producing a false and dangerous condition. 
 
 It is a grave mistake for the farmers of America to 
 concede to the idea that the rural classes are peculiar for 
 lack of ability, or to allow the results of their industry 
 to be valued merely as the product of so much animal 
 exertion ; but, on the contrary, they should emphatically 
 maintain that they represent an intelligent, a dignified 
 occupation. 
 
 It is an error to permit, as we do, the curricula of our 
 institutions of learning, especially of those where the 
 majority of the pupils attending are supposed to become 
 agriculturists, to be almost void of branches which are 
 calculated to create an interest in agriculture, and to 
 ennoble the calling in the minds of the young. 
 
 "As it is at present, in thousands of our country 
 schools, the instruction is wholly apart from the actual 
 life of the scholars. The teaching is a weary round of 
 book studies, and the wealth of practical instruction that 
 is to be gained by a proper consideration of the every- 
 day life and natural surroundings of children is entirely 
 missed. Besides turning the young mind in the direction 
 of agriculture, such instruction in the common schools 
 would tend to increase the inborn love of the soil, and sow 
 the germs of State and national pride and patriotism." ' 
 
 ' American Agriculturist, October, 1889. 
 
220 AMERICAN FARMS. 
 
 It is also very far from wise for farmers themselves, 
 as it is also for the general safety, to allow the opinion 
 to prevail that they are unfit to grace our legislative 
 halls or to put character into our laws. Mr. Gladstone 
 says of the statesmen of the early history of the United 
 States : " It is no extravagance to say that, although 
 there were only three millions of people in the thirteen 
 States at the time of the Revolution, the group of states- 
 men that proceeded from them were a match for any in 
 the whole history of the world, and were superior to 
 those of any one epoch. Their fortunate appearance was 
 undoubtedly due to well-regulated muscular freedom." 
 
 It is a calamity for society to be governed by physical 
 weaklings, with less and less brain capacity, who may 
 become finally, as the monarchs of Europe were said to 
 have been at the beginning of the century — imbecile. 
 
CHAPTER II. 
 
 THE FARMERS' INTEREST IN THE SOCIAL OUTLOOK. 
 
 We may disinter the vanished draperies, we may revive the 
 stately minuet, we may rehabilitate the old scenes, but the march of a 
 century cannot be halted or reversed, and the enormous change in 
 the situation can neither be disguised nor ignored. Then we were, 
 though not all of us, sprung from one nationality, practically one 
 people. Now that steadily deteriorating process, against whose 
 dangers a great thinker of our own generation warned his country- 
 men just fifty years ago, goes on on every hand apace.'' 
 
 — Bishop Potter. 
 
 Probably the most far-reaching problem before the 
 public mind in America to-day is the vexed question of 
 social rights. Whether we have presented to our con- 
 sideration the difficulties existing between labor and 
 capital, the distribution of land, the matter of public 
 instruction, or the formation of fiscal policies, we have 
 in some measure to deal with an important phase of the 
 social question. Nearly every important movement in 
 industrial and social life has much to do with this truly 
 great matter ; and it might be stated, with little proba- 
 bility of contradiction, that at few former periods has 
 this problem been subjected to such varied and urgent 
 notice as it is now receiving. America is not now very 
 much behind the rest of the world in furnishing material 
 for the study of these matters ; and the old maritime 
 States of the northeast of the Union, in a marked de- 
 
222 AMERICAN FARMS. 
 
 gree, furnish a history of social changes of very great 
 interest, especially as it relates to the rural classes. 
 If we look for a locality where the development of 
 industrial progress, with all the attendant social con- 
 sequences which industrial progress implies, should, in 
 its growth, correspond with the ideal of at least one 
 great school, and, in fact, in line with the general trend 
 of the economic thought of the day in America, we 
 instinctively turn to those old maritime States. Their 
 social history will, in relation to political economy, serve 
 to a great extent as an index to the whole question in 
 America. Is it satisfactory to any thoughtful mind ? 
 While it will be generally admitted that half a century 
 ago the average ruralist of New England was an enviable 
 type of citizen, that his social, financial, and political 
 influence was a power in his country, that he was ac- 
 knowledged on all sides to be a reliable, intelligent, and 
 weighty authority on all political, economic, and social 
 questions, and that his influence extended even to other 
 countries, few make this claim for him to-day. The 
 opinion that in character, ability, and enterprising spirit, 
 the farmer of New England is losing ground, is expressed 
 in the works of nearly every writer upon the condition 
 of the farmers of those States. 
 
 One writer very pertinently remarks : " There was a 
 time wEen New England was looked upon as a sort 
 of reservoir of the true American spirit ; when she sent 
 her sons and her daughters out from the towns to be 
 teachers to the rest of the nation, and to found new 
 towns in the West ; when New England spirit seemed 
 to be a leaven, leavening all the national life. . . . All 
 this is changed." ' Certainly it is not in the farmers alone, 
 ' Mr. Geoffrey Chaplin, in the North American Review, 
 
THE FARMERS' SOCIAL OUTLOOK. 223 
 
 there is to be noticed the loss of Puritan character and 
 true American spirit, though in them, in the fullest meas- 
 ure, dwelt these characteristics. And they were teachers 
 to the rest of the nation, because in them rested a posi- 
 tive realization of the fact that it devolved upon them to 
 infuse their spirit into all measures for the political, 
 moral, intellectual, and industrial progress of their coun- 
 try. It was their country, their land, and they esteemed 
 their privileges and their achievements, as became an 
 independent and truly sovereign people. They honored 
 and highly valued the result of honest labor, and of rural 
 labor above all others. The " country squire " could 
 talk politics with lively interest to the best man in the 
 community, and the best man was very likely to be his 
 near neighbor, because the politics of his time were 
 to him of practical significance. He was sensible of 
 a perceptible result in his efforts to influence the fashion- 
 ing of laws and the course of law-makers. They had 
 not reached out, as now, beyond him.' 
 
 ' Since my monograph was placed in the hands of its publishers, 
 the following interesting editorial remarks upon an article of Judge 
 Nott's has appeared in the New York Evening Post : ' ' No other 
 - such body of cultivators of the soil as the New England colonists 
 were, down to our own day, has ever been seen. No other men who 
 tilled the ground with their own hands have had such an acute and 
 active intelligence, such intense preoccupation with religious and 
 moral problems, such a keen sense of the superior importance of 
 spiritual things, such reverence for learning, such familiarity with 
 and appreciation of literature, and such capacity for government by 
 discussion. Puritanism, as has often been said, missed its mark 
 in England ; but it came as near realizing its ideal as human nature 
 would permit on American soil. No student of politics or sociology 
 will, in all probability, for ages to come, light on an experiment in 
 all respects so interesting and so successful as Massachusetts and 
 Connecticut were and continued to be down to the outbreak of the 
 
224 AMERICAN FARMS. 
 
 It is, notwithstanding, a great mistake that the farmers 
 of New England do not compare well with the average 
 citizen in all that goes to make up the invaluable portion 
 of the commonwealth. Especially is this the case, as we 
 look at the matter from the standpoints of morality, re- 
 ligion, or social order. Social safety is with the citizen 
 who possesses a desire to preserve his country's institu- 
 tions and her political integrity. The farmers, sprung 
 from the loins of the stock which shaped their country's 
 early life, must, of all, be her truest patriots ; whereas 
 the ignorant, shifting, migrating classes, of which the 
 American cities are becoming largely composed, have 
 cast off their patriotic sentiments, if they ever had any. 
 In them is danger, now and always. Forty-seven per 
 cent, of the population of the cities and factory towns 
 of Massachusetts in 1885 were foreign-born ; while 
 
 civil war. Tlie only important point in the catastrophe, which Judge 
 Nott does not attempt to explain, or even to touch upon, is the 
 equanimity, and even rejoicing, with which the New England 
 farmers have witnessed the disappearance of the social edifice which 
 they had passed two centuries in building up, and cementing with an 
 enormous amount of religious zeal and self-sacrifice. For more than 
 a quarter of a century New Englanders have, through their organs, 
 in politics, in literature, and oratory, eagerly supported the policy 
 which was visibly and rapidly changing the character of their popula- 
 tion and the structure of their society. The most ardent advocates 
 and promoters of ' the factory at your doors, ' with its swarm of 
 foreign-born voters, have been New England men. They have seen 
 it rapidly and surely converting Connecticut and Massachusetts into 
 foreign, and even into Catholic States, ousting the natives of the 
 Puritan stock from all real influence in the government, and consign- 
 ing to the lumber-room of history the old Puritan traditions of public 
 spirit and public duty, and have seen it sending all their boys and 
 girls flying into the cities and to the West, without a protest or even 
 a word of complaint." December 5, 1889. 
 
THE FARMERS' SOCIAL OUTLOOK. 22$ 
 
 only 23 per cent, of the agriculturists of the State were 
 so born. 
 
 In the older provinces of Canada the farmers compose 
 as fine a class of men as are to be found anywhere. They 
 form the best law-abiding, industrious, moral forces of 
 the confederacy. 
 
 Yet, with the decline of American agriculture, and 
 the diminution of the number of the small land pro- 
 prietors, dangers to the social order and the security 
 of the state must be more and more augmented as the 
 evil goes on. The first impetus towards social insecurity 
 may now be seen in the dissatisfaction which is growing 
 among farmers because of their relative disadvantages. 
 The second is rapidly approached when legislators begin 
 to consider favorably the policy of repeopling the old 
 country towns with foreign stock, in place of removing 
 the difficulties which are driving the old families away. 
 The third danger is the relative decline in the number of 
 those who should have direct interest in preserving the 
 institutions of the country. 
 
 It is no doubt too true, that the farms and the villages 
 of New England are no longer the nurseries of the type 
 of " earnest thinkers and patient workers " that they 
 once were ; while it is true that there is a growing unrest 
 among the rural classes, because of the changes which 
 oppress them. It is also conspicuously apparent that it 
 is the exception to find farmers who look forward with 
 pride to fitting their sons for an occupation which, as 
 they must believe, is every day losing ground in social 
 rank. New England, being the oldest English commu- 
 nity in America, or the one most ripened in development, 
 shows these changes more conspicuously than other 
 parts. But is it not a disease which is spreading rapidly ? 
 
226 AMERICAN FARMS. 
 
 The merest glance at the subject is sufficient to show- 
 that the whole world is growing gregarious with alarming 
 rapidity ; that the rural life is viewed with more and 
 more aversion. The cities of France — an old country — 
 in 1848 represented 34 per cent, of the entire popula- 
 tion ; a proportion, however, which grew to 36 per cent, 
 in 1886. Beautiful rural France, with all its charms, 
 then, fails to retain its due proportion of the people. 
 Gerinany, since 1867, has increased her urban popula- 
 tion at the rate of a little over i^ per cent, per annum ; 
 the rural population in the same period increased at the 
 rate of only \ per cent, per annum. In parts of rural 
 Italy, every means is being devised by the farmer to ex- 
 change country for city life. But of all the world this 
 tendency is more marked in America than elsewhere. 
 Had the increase of persons engaged in agriculture, in 
 the decade ending with 1880, been equal to the average 
 entire increase of population, there would have been 
 42,341 more engaged in this pursuit than were so found. 
 In the same period, r, 147, 977 represented the propor- 
 tional increase of those in the professional services, 
 trade, transportation, mining, manufacturing, and me- 
 chanical pursuits. The same movements are taking 
 place in Canada. Of the province of Nova Scotia, we 
 find that in the period i86i-8i, the agricultural class 
 fell behind the professional and trading classes, in pro- 
 portional increase, over 20,000. 
 
 The cities and city occupations are evidently drawing 
 the people to themselves. In 1790, the urban population 
 of the United States was only 8.3 per cent, of the total ; 
 in 1850, 12.5 per cent. ; but in i88o it had reached 22.5 
 per cent. The Canadian census returns for 1881 re- 
 ported an increase of 33.0 per cent, in the growth of the 
 
THE FARMERS' SOCIAL OUTLOOK. 22/ 
 
 urban population during the decade of which it treated ; 
 while the growth of the rural population had only been 
 15.6 per cent. The cities of the United States having 
 over 8,000 inhabitants in 1790 contained but one thir- 
 tieth of the population ; in 1880 they contained one 
 fourth. In the State of Massachusetts, with all her 
 markets created by a manufacturing population, her rural 
 denizens decreased by 37,000 in the years 1860-85. I'^ 
 the first-named year, she had a rural population of 698,- 
 261 ; in 1870, 677,601 ; in 1880, 672,462 ; while in 1885 
 it had fallen to 661,588. In 1789 the cities of this State 
 contained 5 per cent, of the population ; in 1885, 66| 
 per cent. 
 
 Recently the Toronto Empire (Conservative) spoke, 
 through its columns devoted to agricultural matters, to 
 this effect : " Everywhere on the continent, east of the 
 Mississippi at any rate, the drift during the past ten to 
 thirty years has been from the country to the towns and 
 cities . . . This continent is rapidly approaching the 
 condition of Europe, where the city populations are far 
 too large for the rural populations that sustain them." 
 Yes, sustain them ! Our cities fill up with unnecessary 
 government officials, or those who, by combinations, are 
 enabled to increase their numbers through gathering 
 to themselves a margin between service rendered and 
 service received. Two perform a service that should 
 require but one. The victim who receives it has double 
 service to perform in return. Why should he not make 
 his escape from such enslavement, if possible ? Prior to 
 the fall of the Roman and Grecian republics, the cities 
 were filled to overflowing, and nearly every free citizen 
 had fled from the country. "The cities increased in 
 splendor from day to day, and from age to age. Temples 
 
228 AMERICAN FARMS. 
 
 were ever being erected of greater magnificence than any 
 heretofore. Theatres were made still more and more 
 attractive for the free exhibition of gladiatorial and other 
 depraving f.ghts. With all this, depopulation and poverty 
 went on in the country, until disease spread throughout 
 all the vital organs of society, and then the whole system 
 collapsed." ' What course will our rural classes take 
 when they come to feel that all escape from this enslave- 
 ment may be cut off ? 
 
 The New World, as well as the Old, echoes and re- 
 echoes with the threatenings of the social revolutionist ; 
 and we are not alone in the opinion that republics and 
 democracies may not be, under certain conditions, any 
 more safe than monarchies from the machinations of the 
 socialist." He reasons : What abiding profit is the 
 proclamation that all are equal, when gross inequality is 
 allowed to go on gathering new elements of oppression ? 
 " What can be expected, when the sole aim of government 
 is to foster such institutions as promise solely to increase 
 riches and population ? To give stability to law and 
 national life, the social ideal should be character." ' The 
 governments of America lend their influence to building 
 up populous industrial centres, the citizens of which are 
 a danger to the social fabric. Lord Macaulay's predic- 
 
 ' Henry C. Carey. 
 
 ' As this chapter is being prepared for publication, news comes 
 from Chicago of the doings of a mass-meeting (October 13, 1889), at 
 which, in the presence of one thousand people, of whom, the account 
 says, over one half hissed at the Stars and Stripes, while the banner 
 of Anarchy was greeted with cheers. One speaker said he was proud 
 of the city in which the execution of anarchists occurred, because 
 he felt that one day it would be the Paris — the city of revolutions — 
 of America. 
 
 ' Bishop Spalding. 
 
THE FARMERS' SOCIAL OUTLOOK. 229 
 
 tion, that the American Republic may yet be "ravaged by 
 Huns and Vandals, engendered within itself and by its 
 own laws, and by its own institutions," has not lost its 
 significance. 
 
 It seems imperative, for the safety of a democratic coun- 
 try, that all its people take a direct interest in preserving 
 its institutions. As matters are going in America, the 
 proportion of those who are not so interested is rapidly 
 increasing. While we extend political rights to all, in 
 some communities, and propose to extend them in others, 
 we increase the effectiveness of systems which are caus- 
 ing continual accessions to the ranks of those who at any 
 time may become a revolutionary force. How long un- 
 der such circumstances before the rule of the despot will 
 become a necessity ? It was a direct interest in protect- 
 ing their own, which stimulated the hardy farmers of the 
 Revolution to fight so well for their land. They fought 
 not only to make it a " land of liberty," but their land of 
 liberty. " The shocks of corn," said Xenophon, " inspire 
 those who have raised them, to defend them." 
 
 It will be well, however, not to nurse the delusion that 
 socialistic sentiments are destined to obtain lodgment in 
 the breasts of only the laborers in our towns and manu- 
 facturing centres. They are, in some sort of shape, rap- 
 idly spreading to the rural districts.' All are aware of 
 
 ' It is a striking coincidence, that while the first President of the 
 United States made stronger claims than any of his successors for the 
 interests of agriculture, and for its value in civilization, the President 
 who leaves office in the centennial year of the inauguration of the first, 
 should feel called upon in his last message to Congress, to sound an 
 alarm at the unsatisfactory position of agriculture in this latter day. 
 Mr. Cleveland looks with apprehension to the time when the farmers, 
 among others, will, realizing the inequality and injustice under which 
 they labor, breed a discontent dangerous to the beneficent operation of 
 
'230 AMERICAN FARMS. 
 
 the agitations in Ireland, and other parts of- Great Britain, 
 over the land question. In Germany, Bismarck's social- 
 istic measures for the assumed benefit of the working 
 classes have failed to satisfy the farmers. In France, 
 these sentiments gain ground in the rural districts. The 
 peasantry of Russia, Spain, and Italy are on the verge of 
 revolt. In parts of Italy they have already shown their 
 hand. In 1882, and again in 1888 Lombardy was the 
 scene of serious disturbances among the rural classes ; 
 buildings were burned, and various crimes committed. 
 Official reports state that " it will require energetic 
 measures to combat these fermentations." 
 
 Collectivism, land nationalization, and other socialistic 
 schemes are proposed to remedy all our social ills. These 
 grow in favor as capital continues to rob the small hold- 
 ers of their land. In Mantua, a province in Italy, between 
 187 1 and 1879, land proprietors had decreased from 39,- 
 868 to 35,535. The peasant in many cases holds on to his 
 land with a death-like grip, with all the harrowing anxiety 
 which its ownership entails ; and it is only when its load 
 of debt devours it, that he gives it up. He is then found 
 low and servile, or the bitter enemy to the existing order. 
 The three millions of so-called pauper land proprietors 
 
 government. He says : ' ' Communism is a hateful thing, and a men- 
 ace to peace and organized government. But the communism of com- 
 bined wealth and capital, the outgrowth of overweening cupidity and 
 selfishness, which insidiously undermines the justice and integrity of 
 free institutions, is no less dangerous than the communism of oppressed 
 poverty and toil, which, exasperated by injustice and discontent, attacks 
 with wild disorders the citadel of rule." This is not the disturbing 
 utterance of a mere demagogue, or the hallucination of a disordered 
 crank, but the timely warning of the true patriot, who would avert a 
 calamity terrible to contemplate. 
 
THE FARMERS' SOCIAL OUTLOOK. 23! 
 
 of France, inheriting from their ancestors a load of injus- 
 tices, are hardly responsible even for what their own exer- 
 tions might remedy. Circumstances may make men but 
 little removed from the brute. 
 
 However, all socialistic schemes as continuous policies 
 mean slavery. It is only when the evils which prompt 
 retaliation by combination are removed, that freedom is 
 real. Socialism is in direct antagonism with the true 
 interests of agriculture. Under a general regime of one 
 socialistic scheme against another, the game is against 
 the best condition of agriculture. Freedom ! Freedom ! 
 Individuality ! must be the watchwords of the husband- 
 man. The present state of land ownership in Great 
 Britain is admitted on most sides to be unsatisfactory, — 
 in proof of which is the endeavor of successive govern- 
 ments to remedy the evil legislation of centuries past. 
 There, as in other parts of Europe, the disease having, 
 in a certain sense, become chronic, a return to a better 
 state of land ownership is most difficult. In America, 
 the acute stage is approaching rapidly, through a some- 
 what different channel from that by which England's 
 farmers lost their lands ; but I trust it is not too late, in 
 most localities at least, for the application of a salutary 
 remedy. 
 
 I believe in a numerous land-holding class ; small land 
 proprietors have been the backbone of nearly all real 
 progress in America ; and the outlook is dark indeed 
 if their power and influence is gradually to disappear. 
 Sismondi says : " Wherever we find peasant proprietors, 
 we find comfort, security, confidence in the future, and 
 that which assures at once happiness and virtue." This 
 independence certainly should be the desired condition. 
 
232 AMERICAN FARMS. 
 
 The Belgian economist De Laveleye's opinion is, that 
 "in England, large farming and large properties have 
 killed this class of free and brave peasant proprietors, the 
 yeomen who won the battles of Poitiers, Crecy, and 
 Agincourt. . . . Never to be forgotten is Pliny's cry of 
 grief, which echoes like a warning note through economic 
 history. Overgrown estates ruined Italy and the prov- 
 inces. Large properties produce everywhere excessive 
 inequality, depopulation, class divisions, and decay. 
 Countries inhabited by peasant proprietors have with- 
 stood all these crises." If we compare country with 
 country, period with period, we will find that where the 
 land has been well divided among the people, other things 
 being equal, there prosperity will be the more generally 
 apparent. 
 
 It is the Abb6 St. Pierre's decision, that the infraction 
 of the Roman laws limiting the size of the Roman 
 citizen's estates to small dimensions, hastened rapidly 
 the ruin of the republic. 
 
 All through the history of Greece we are impressed by 
 the idea, that, notwithstanding her growth towards per- 
 fection in literature, science, and politics, she carried 
 along with it the seeds of her own destruction. The 
 depravity of the masses resulted largely from depriving 
 them of the reasonable use of the lands. The history 
 of the rise and progress, decay, and final downfall of 
 these old civilizations, showing that the general features 
 of each progressive stage were an index to the condition 
 and importance of the agricultural classes, and of the 
 manner in which the land was held by them, is of very 
 grpat practical interest to us. 
 
 Dr. Bowen, an American authority of some note on 
 these matters, believes that " every farmer should own 
 
THE FARMERS' SOCIAL OUTLOOK. 233 
 
 the soil he tills " ; that " it makes him a better farmer, a 
 better citizen, and a more patriotic one." 
 
 Collectivism would be no remedy for the abnormal 
 state of things toward which we are now tending ; it 
 would be a cure more to be dreaded than the disease ; 
 and the same may be said of land nationalization. Ex- 
 tinguish that impulse which prompts our farmers to cul- 
 tivate with energy, and beautify the lands of their fore- 
 fathers, and you have stricken that land with a blight ; 
 cause the farmer to view the orchards and gardens which 
 have been his childhood's delight, as the property of the 
 highest bidder, and his interest in them fails ; deprive 
 him of the stimulus to work, which sole ownership and 
 management of an estate freed from all encumbrances 
 naturally gives him, and make a collectivate or govern- 
 ment agent sole manager of his individual industries, and 
 you have robbed him of the best incentives toward true 
 progress. There is nothing original in all this. They 
 are but the views of our ablest economists. Adam 
 Smith's observations led him to the conclusion, that 
 "the small proprietor who tills every part of his Uttle 
 territory, who views it with all the affection which prop- 
 erty (especially small property) inspires, and who, on 
 that account, takes pleasure not only in cultivating but 
 in adorning it, is generally of all improvers the most 
 industrious, the most intelligent, and the most success- 
 ful." Arthur Young makes this striking and enthusiastic 
 remark : " Give a man secure possession of a bleak 
 rock, and he will turn it into a garden." 
 
 Nothing can be more conducive to the success of the 
 farmer's enterprise than the confidence that his labors 
 may secure him thorough independence. With increas- 
 
234 AMERICAN FARMS. 
 
 ing faith in his opportunities to become an individual 
 owner, his chances to become something of a capitalist 
 are increased. As he gathers capital, he gathers power to 
 defy the land-grabber or the usurer. But this is not the 
 tendency in America to-day, and the consequence must 
 be fewer and fewer men on whom to depend for social 
 security — a most momentous matter. 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 
 DANGER TO MORALS. 
 
 Everywhere we find political centralization counteracting the in- 
 fluence of that social decentralization which looks to elevating the 
 condition of all the people of the state, whether male or female. 
 
 — Henry C. Carey. 
 
 In an opening chapter I made the claim in behalf of 
 the rural classes, that they, in addition to their many 
 other valuable characteristics, were peculiarly the moral 
 safeguards of society. Especially is this so in reference 
 to the use of intoxicants. 
 
 Regrettable though it be, we are, in some particulars, 
 becoming more susceptible to the acquirement of this 
 habit than heretofore. We have already learned that 
 nervous disorders are increasing. This is not only the 
 case in the United States, but in Canada as well. " When 
 the nervous system loSes, through any cause, much of 
 its nervous force, so that it cannot stand upright with 
 ease and comfort, it leans on the nearest and most con- 
 venient artificial support that is capable of temporarily 
 propping up the enfeebled frame. Any thing which 
 gives ease, sedation, oblivion, such as chloral, chloro- 
 form, opium, or alcohol, may be resorted to, first as an 
 incident, and finally as a habit." ' 
 
 ' Dr. George M. Beard. 
 235 
 
236 AMERICAN FARMS. 
 
 The Rev. Josiah Strong, commenting on the above, in 
 dealing with this subject in his book, " Our Country," 
 says : " Men of nervous organizations are not only more 
 likely than others to use alcohol, and to use it to excess, 
 but its effects in their case are worse and more rapid. 
 The wide difference between a nervous and a phlegmatic 
 temperament accounts for the fact that one man will kill 
 himself with drink in four or five years, and another in 
 forty or fifty." 
 
 The annual expenditure of the United States for 
 foreign and domestic liquors is now estimated at one 
 thousand millions of dollars. " This is more than is ex- 
 pended for beef, pork, and flour, and nearly equals the 
 amount paid for wages in all the manufacturing estab- 
 lishments of every description." ' Official statistics show 
 that beer has largely taken the place of spirits, but 
 though in 1840, the United States consumed four gallons 
 of liquor per capita, in 1888 she consumed over twelve 
 gallons per capita. 
 
 As the people gather more into the cities, a larger pro- 
 portion of the nation becomes more subject to nervous 
 disorders, and a consequent susceptibility to intemper- 
 ance, a habit which further impairs the moral, the men- 
 tal, and the physical capacities of men, — which fills jails 
 with criminals, poorhouses with paupers, and makes 
 many homes of wretchedness. The increased exposure 
 to the vice of intemperance is one grave objection to 
 change from country to city life. Especially is this the 
 case with those who become engaged in the very unhealthy 
 occupations — occupations which are on the increase. 
 Higher wages are paid to those who are likely to be soon 
 cut down by the deadly effects of their peculiar industry. 
 
 ' Senator John J. Ingalls, North American Review, August, 1889. 
 
DANGER TO MORALS. 237 
 
 Consequently a greater opportunity is afforded for holi- 
 days. Indeed, it is claimed that the drinkers live the 
 longest, owing to their more frequent absence from work. 
 We might wish that Ebenezer Elliott's character of the 
 grinder applied better to that class in his time than now : 
 
 " There draws the grinder his laborious breath ; 
 
 There, coughing, at his deadly trade, he bends ; 
 Born to die young, he fears nor man, nor death ; 
 Scorning the future, what he earns, he spends ; 
 Debauch and riot are his bosom friends." 
 
 As our young men drift into the cities, they come into 
 contact, not with the once denounced and degraded bar- 
 room, but with the respectable " beer palace," where 
 every thing is made as attractive and entertaining as 
 possible. To-day, as compared with twenty years ago, 
 the selling of intoxicating liquors is an eminently re- 
 spectable occupation, and consequently the tendency is 
 to make the habit of drinking equally so. These " beer 
 palaces " are gilded traps for our country boys, when 
 they come to change country for city life. The city of 
 New York alone has seven thousand of these legalized 
 life- and soul-destroying dispensaries of sin and ruin, 
 some of them being most costly and gorgeous in their 
 appointments. 
 
 That the cities contain a larger proportion of excessive 
 drinkers than the country, is proved by the much larger 
 ratio of deaths in them from this cause, as compared with 
 the country. In the city of London, one to 12,800 of 
 the population dies from the use of alcohol, while of the 
 whole kingdom, only one to 26,000 dies from its use. 
 
 In fact, the ruralists of our country can hardly realize 
 how much the cause of temperance depends upon them 
 
238 AMERICAN FARMS. 
 
 for its life and vigor ; though it is not difficult to obtain 
 data to prove that the backbone of organized temperance 
 reform is with the rural classes, while it is little less 
 difficult to discover that organized opposition to this 
 work has its chief strength with the urban classes. 
 
 To-day with the vast city vote against the country, the 
 country majority is handicapped by the city majority, 
 whatever it may wish to do in order to stay the tide of 
 intemperance. The great temperance reforms of the 
 past have been principally fought out in the country 
 towns. To carry on this warfare successfully must 
 become more and more difficult, as the cities grow while 
 the country stands still. 
 
 Remarks Mr. Strong : " Our cities are growing much 
 more rapidly than the whole population, as is the liquor 
 power also." After which he propounds the query : "If 
 this power continues to keep the cities under its heel, 
 what of the nation, when the city dominates the country ? " 
 New York is now practically ruled by the liquor inter- 
 ests, but New York is not alone in this by any means. 
 
 There are no more active workers in our political 
 caucuses than the city and town dealers, manufacturers 
 and promoters of this degrading and destructive traffic. 
 These men spend vast amounts at every election to 
 corrupt voters. And thousands of dollars are put up at 
 every session of our legislatures, to buy up legislators for 
 the purpose of keeping open this highway to destruction. 
 
 It is not the farmers of America who desire the growth 
 of this evil, or who crave its exhilarating effects. And, 
 be they prohibitionists or moral-suasionists, they have 
 little desire to see the accumulation of revenue through 
 the sale of privileges to import, to manufacture, or dis- 
 pense that which debases, enslaves, and pauperizes so 
 
DANGER TO MORALS. 
 
 239 
 
 many of the people. Neither can prohibitionists nor 
 moral-suasionists anywhere permit, without heartfelt 
 regret, the continuous change of conditions which tend 
 to nourish proclivities towards the drinking habit, and 
 to see those who are engaged in this trade the rulers of 
 the land. 
 
 It was to some a startling statement, recently made 
 by a prominent clergyman, that, unless a substitute be 
 found, the liquor saloon supplies an absolute necessity in 
 our great cities such as New York, with their " hundreds 
 of thousands of homeless boarding-house and lodging- 
 house population." ' This condition has assumed gigan- 
 tic proportions, apparently unnoticed. But now we must 
 ask : As matters are drifting, will a substitute be found ? 
 Every new day sees a larger proportion of American 
 people than hitherto, of the boarding- and lodging-house 
 stamp. It follows, that we are rapidly increasing the 
 proportion of our citizens to whom the beer saloon or a 
 substitute is a necessity. The country of small farmers 
 such as has been the pride of America in the past, requires 
 nothing of the kind. To such the beer saloon, instead of 
 being a necessity, is always a curse when established. 
 
 But, whether the sale of intoxicants for the purpose of 
 being used as a beverage should be prohibited or limited 
 by law, or its control be left to the influences of moral 
 forces, there is no question as to the imperative necessity 
 for the human family to avoid, by all means, that condi- 
 tion which must constantly increase their chances to be 
 the victims of this increasing peril. 
 
 Another most serious phase of the question of the 
 drift from the old farms to other occupations in the 
 towns and cities — the dispersion of the old families from 
 
 ' The Rev. Dr. Bacon. 
 
240 AMERICAN FAKMS. 
 
 the homes of their fathers — is in the diminution of per- 
 manent homes just where permanent homes should be 
 increased. There is a safety to the state and to truest 
 aims of life in the multiplicity of complete family circles. 
 
 I once heard the Rev. Henry Ward Beecher say, that 
 he had no fear for the people who must build cellars 
 under their homes ; for, in a climate where such were 
 necessary, the father would be found at home when the 
 day's work was over. Mr. Beecher was right. The 
 home life is of the most desirable character, where the 
 husband and father looks to his own fireside, himself to 
 become the central figure in the family group, when he 
 seeks rest and recreation from his toil ; the life where 
 the wife and mother is least likely to have occasion 
 to carry a heavy heart, because of the marriage vow 
 having become shorn of the virtue it should possess ; the 
 home where the round of household duties, though 
 perhaps rough and laborious, may be performed with 
 cheerfulness, because it is a work in which a family's 
 interests and sympathies share in promoting their accom- 
 plishment ; the home where the children may view with 
 pleasure and with profit a harmony of purpose in all the 
 details of the varied efforts which are being *put forth to 
 further the interests of the individual, the family, and the 
 state. 
 
 Every new contingent which leaves the old farms for 
 city or factory-town life, goes to swell the ranks of the 
 classes which are doing least to preserve, in its full sig- 
 nificance, the sovereign value of the family compact. We 
 cannot give too much heed to the danger which must 
 befall us, through thus following in the track of the 
 civilizations which have gone down. With the people 
 flocking to cities, and the corresponding moral dangers 
 
DANGER TO MORALS. ' 24 1 
 
 therefrom, a growing disregard of the sanctity and indis- 
 soluble character and purpose of the marriage vow— the 
 family compact, — we endanger the whole fabric of society. 
 " Any reflecting person, considering these questions from 
 the point of view of public policy and in the interests of 
 civilization, without any prepossessions upon the subject 
 that can be called religious, must see that the institution 
 of the family is at the. base of all our civilization, and it 
 is the duty of every good citizen to repel all assaults 
 upon it." 
 
 Notwithstanding our great accumulations of wealth, 
 our palatial residences with their varied attractions and 
 appointments to make the average city home luxurious 
 and comfortable, the father and husband, as a rule, is 
 less at home than in the ruder days of the early Pilgrims 
 and Puritans. With our development, the modern club- 
 house and the fashionable restaurant have come — a 
 menace to the permanency and nobility of the family. 
 They take the heart out of the family circle, and leave it 
 cold and purposeless. These institutions are growing 
 in America out of all proportion to the increase of 
 population. 
 
 Of the poorer classes, it is becoming strikingly appar- 
 ent, that the number of married women looking for em- 
 ployment at the stores, offices, and factories is alarmingly 
 on the increase. It is said by those who have given this 
 matter attention, that the married who are thus striving 
 for situations in our cities are not fewer in numbers than 
 the unmarried ; that of these the majority are women 
 whose husbands have either left them, or who are com- 
 pelled to assist the husband in procuring a subsistence for 
 the family ; that a vast proportion are wives of perfidious 
 
 husbands. There was once a time when the young wife 
 II 
 
242 AMERICAN FARMS. 
 
 of the man of small income was enabled to join by the 
 side of the husband in the labors of his calling, as in the 
 small retail stores — now almost extinct in our large cities. 
 But of all, the country, under the regime of the small 
 farmer, has afforded the best chances for this most 
 desirable- of partnerships. 
 
 The state wherein is destroyed the permanent home 
 life must expect moral degeneracy, and the state which 
 depends upon the great capitalists, and hired labor, and 
 mechanics to supply it with the fruits of the earth must 
 one day see its homes become devoid of character or 
 honor — its mothers forced down from the high and 
 rightful place which they should occupy. 
 
 Of the fallen Grecian Republic, says Mr. Henry C. 
 Carey : " Wisdom, love, chastity, poetry, history, the 
 liberal arts, and even Athens herself, were typified by 
 female figures — Minerva, Venus, Diana, and the Muses 
 having been the objects of divine worship among the 
 people who looked to Solon for their instructions and 
 their laws. When, however, we look to the interior of the 
 Athenian family, we find, as in all cases of semi-barbarism, 
 the home to have no real existence, the wife having been 
 a mere drudge, whose sphere of action was limited to the 
 perpetuation of the family and the superintendence of the 
 household — the husband meanwhile finding the best so- 
 ciety the city could supply in the dwelling of his mistress. 
 Neglected as she was, chastity was then, nevertheless, the 
 characteristic of the Athenian matron. When, however, 
 Athens had become mistress of one thousand cities, when 
 centralization had been fully carried out, when trade, war, 
 and politics had become the sole pursuit of the Athenian 
 men, we find Socrates lending his wife to his friend, 
 while Pericles scarcely surprises his fellow-citizens when 
 
DANGER TO MORALS. 243 
 
 presenting to them Aspasia, his own mistress, and the 
 mistress of so many others, as his legitimate wife — the 
 class of hetarcB then constituting the most distinguished 
 feature in the highly civilized society which had Attica 
 for its home." ' 
 
 " The tendency of legislation in this country has been 
 to a relaxation of the matrimonial tie, and this is a ten- 
 dency that there is urgent need of resisting." " It indi- 
 cates a general relaxation of moral forces. We are creating 
 a state which is the least likely to resist this tendency, 
 and legislators as well as others are participating in it. 
 
 Says Cardinal 'Gibbons : " In Rome adulteries in- 
 creased as divorces were multiplied." 
 
 After speaking of the facility and frequency of 
 divorce among the Romans, Gibbons adds : " A 
 specious theory is confuted by this free and perfect 
 experiment, which demonstrates that the liberty of 
 divorce does not contribute to happiness and virtue. 
 This facility of separation would destroy all mutual con- 
 fidence and inflame every trifling dispute. The minute 
 difference between a husband and a stranger which 
 might so easily be removed, might still more easily be 
 forgotten." 
 
 How apropos in this connection are the words of 
 Professor Woolsey : " Nothing is more startling than 
 to pass from the first part of the eighteenth to the latter 
 part of the nineteenth century, and to observe how law 
 has changed and opinion has altered in regard to mar- 
 riage — the great foundation of society — and to divorce ; 
 and how, almost pari passu, various offences against 
 chastity, such as concubinage, prostitution, illegitimate 
 
 • " Social Science,'' vol. iii., p. 370. 
 ' New York Times, October 25, 1889. ^ 
 
244 AMERICAN FARMS. 
 
 births, abortion, disinclination to family life, have in- 
 creased also, not indeed at the same pace everywhere, 
 or all of them equally in all countries, yet have decidedly 
 increased on the whole. Surely in few parts of the 
 wide world is the truth of these strong words more 
 evident than in those parts of our country where loose 
 divorce laws have long prevailed." ' 
 
 From a total of 9,937 divorces granted in the United 
 States in 1867, they increased to 25,535 in 1886 : an in- 
 crease double the increase of population. Near to every 
 tenth family is broken up through difficulties between 
 husbands and wives resulting in divdrces. In fact, in 
 some cities of America it is the exception to find a 
 family that is not in some way afflicted by this growing 
 evil. While this is the case in the cities, the separation 
 of husband and wife is of infrequent occurrence in the 
 country. 
 
 Woman — whose history, until a very recent period has 
 been one of subordination, shame, and suffering, from 
 the hands of her lord and master ; who looks forward 
 to the days of equal rights and greater freedom ; who 
 would sit enthroned in her proper sphere, honored, re- 
 spected, and deferred to as an equal in intelligence and 
 in worth, — has every thing to fear from the breaking up 
 of the small land proprietories. 
 
 Every consideration, however, pales before the last 
 that we shall mention — our tendencies towards those 
 conditions least likely to preserve or increase Christian 
 characteristics. Statistics bearing upon this subject are 
 to the effect, that the country people have been greater 
 church-goers than the city people, and that these pro- 
 clivities have become in the past more and more marked. 
 
 ' North American Review, November, 1889. 
 
DANGER TO MORALS. 245 
 
 In 1880, one of the chief cities of America, Chicago, had 
 only one church to each 2,081 of the people, whereas the 
 country had more than one to every 516. In 1840, 
 Chicago had one to every 747 of its people. The change 
 has been more noticeable in this city than with most 
 others, but the whole tendency has been in the direction 
 thus indicated. The cities of America are being filled 
 with those who have no desire for Christian worship. 
 Indeed the extreme socialist declares himself the direct 
 opponent of religion of any sort. The city is his home, 
 and it is there that his contaminating influence is exercised. 
 
 Corresponding to the weakening of the desires of the 
 people for religious worship, has crime increased. The 
 ratio of prison population to each million of the inhab- 
 itants of the United States was 290 in 1850; 607 in 
 i860; 853 in 1870; and 1,169 ™- 1880. These figures 
 show that crime in America is increasing out of all pro- 
 portion to increase of population. It is in the great 
 cities that the increase of crime is chiefly taking place. 
 
 But it seems a time does come when, the country hav- 
 ing lost its economic, political, and social vitality, it may 
 fail in moral and religious character. It has been so with 
 the fallen civilizations. In its appearance we see that 
 which may be the beginning of the end. What a pure, 
 noble, and grand development, in high religious purpose, 
 has been that worked out on the farms and in the coun- 
 try towns of New England ! How sad that the scenes of 
 these religious activities should cease to see perpetuated 
 the Christian traditions marked so indelibly upon the 
 history of the pioneer life of this interesting portion of 
 the New World ! 
 
 The Rev. Mr. Henry Fairbanks stated recently, before 
 the Evangelical Alliance of America, that in Vermont 
 
246 AMERICAN FARMS. 
 
 there were but 150,000 of the population of the State 
 who now attend any place of worship, whereas there are 
 183,000 who never go at all. Another says that a gen- 
 eration of infidels has been reared upon the hillsides of 
 New England, and that they are the worst heathen that 
 he has ever met with.' 
 
 The Rev. Mr. J. S. Buckminster, in the first years of the 
 present century, or when the typical American farmer was 
 a most prominent figure in the affairs of that early period, 
 saw in those farmers the greatest spiritual hope of the 
 Commonwealth. He said : " No situation in life is so favor- 
 able to the establishment of habits of virtue, and powerful 
 sentiments of devotion, as a residence in the country, and 
 rural occupations. I am not speaking of a condition of 
 peasantry (of which, in this country, we know little) who 
 are mere vassals of an absent lord, or hired laborers of 
 an intendant, and who are therefore interested in nothing 
 but the regular receipt of their daily wages ; but I refer 
 to the honorable character of the owner of the soil, whose 
 comforts, whose weight in the community, and whose 
 very existence depends upon his personal labors, and the 
 regular returns of the abundance from the soil he cul- 
 tivates. No man, one would think, would feel so sensibly 
 his immediate dependence upon God, as the husband- 
 man." In the American farmer of his day, he saw the 
 ideal farmer, in fact ; he saw in him the one in whom 
 religious character was of the most likely development 
 from the circumstance among others, that the natiire of 
 agricultural pursuits, as he saw them in his time, " does 
 not completely engross the attention as other occupa- 
 tions. Even then he saw the necessity of entreating the 
 city classes, few as they were then by comparison, to 
 ' Rev. Mr, Haynes, 
 
DANGER TO MORALS. 
 
 247 
 
 "avoid the practice of any thing which might impair the 
 vigor of rural virtues, simplicity and morality, and espe- 
 cially of the institution of the Sabbath." 
 
 Coming down to the middle of our century, we find 
 the Rev. Mr. Beecher sounding a note of warning : " If 
 we neglect our duty and suffer our laws and institutions 
 to go down, we give them up forever. It is easy to 
 relax, easy to retreat, but impossible, when the abomina- 
 tion of desolation has passed over New England, to rear 
 again the thrown down altars, and gather again the frag- 
 ments, and build up the ruins of demolished institutions. 
 Another New England nor we, nor our children shall 
 ever see, if this be destroyed. All is lost irretrievably 
 when the landmarks are once removed and the bands 
 which now hold us are broken. Such institutions and 
 such a state of society can be established only by such 
 men as our fathers were, and in such circumstances as 
 they were in. . . The hand that overthrows our 
 
 laws and temples is the hand of death unbarring the 
 gate of Pandemonium, and letting loose upon our land 
 ihe crimes and miseries of Hell." 
 
 Robbed of that link of hope and reverence which 
 prompts to aims and actions which are true and eter- 
 nal in their influence upon character, the people thus 
 divested must become as all nations that forget God. It 
 matters not what the method employed to break down our 
 best of institutions, — the direct or the indirect, — the result 
 must be the same in the end, and the responsibility upon 
 those instrumental in bringing it about, will be in propor- 
 tion to the knowledge they possess of the drift and pur- 
 pose of our social and national undertakings. The catas- 
 trophe in New England, should be an instruction and a 
 warning to the rest of America. 
 
THE CONCLUSION, IN WHICH THE REMEDY IS FOUND. 
 " Morality is stronger than a Majority." 
 
 n* 
 
THE CONCLUSION. 
 
 The first step towards a remedy for the decline of 
 American agriculture, and an escape from the dangers 
 it foreshadows, must be in a proper and more general 
 realization of the imperative necessity for a larger propor- 
 tion of the people to be engaged in tilling the soil than at 
 present ; a realization that agriculture must be made 
 prosperous, and rank first among the great industries. 
 
 A further step may be taken in the farmers of America 
 making themselves a political force, uniting for this pur- 
 pose, and securing, wherever and whenever possible, the 
 return of an intelligent farmer to Parliament ; then, in 
 the legislative halls bending their energies, not to further 
 the schemes of the communist, nor those of the socialist, 
 but the projects of the true social reformer — not seeking 
 more laws, but better laws, and the liberty of a true 
 equality. Buckle was no doubt correct in his remark : 
 " The best laws which have been passed have been those 
 by which some former laws were repealed." 
 
 We can abolish all laws which tend to engender 
 national strife, the destructive results of which must be 
 borne by our toiling people ; all laws which are barriers 
 between supply and demand, preventing production — that 
 is, man's labor — from enjoying its natural and true value ; 
 all laws which tend to prevent the reduction of taxes 
 to the actual needs of the government, and the reduction 
 
 251 • 
 
252 AMERTCAN FARMS. 
 
 of government to the actual needs of the people ; all 
 laws which prevent the placing of taxes where they 
 should be placed ; and all laws which force labor to give 
 unfair support to capital or to monopoly, creating in- 
 equality, sacrificing the true ethical spirit, which should 
 prevail, to the wiles of scheming politicians. This would 
 do much, very, very much, to correct that greatly neg- 
 lected division of political economy — the distribution of 
 wealth. Then the farmers, both large and small, would be 
 upon an equal footing with all others in the community. 
 
 With the powers which prosperity gives, well diffused 
 among the small estates, dangerous socialistic movements 
 can make little headway. Individual ownership incites 
 to individual responsibility. Thus an effectual security 
 is given to the prevention of social disturbances. In 
 this greater diffusion of an augmented prosperity among 
 the rural classes, is also to be found an escape from 
 the dangers to morals, intellect, and the physical stamina 
 of men, which now threaten the human family. 
 
 But, however true all this is, as conditions now exist, 
 it may well be questioned if the farmers of America, 
 with all the forces they may gather in our parliamentary 
 assemblies, would alone be able to combat the forces 
 which we see are pitted against them ; able to meet the 
 argument that, though admitting a policy of universal 
 economic freedom to be an " immense blessing to the 
 world," yet since the nations and so many individuals 
 have given themselves over to a " general scramble for 
 wealth and commercial supremacy," it would be puerile 
 and absurd for us to take the lead, or even to follow in 
 an effort to gain for the world these immense blessings, 
 but instead should take part in the scramble ourselves ; 
 that it is a practical age, which has Httle room for visjong,- 
 
THE CONCLUSION. 253 
 
 ties ; and that the "practical politician" decides against 
 visionaries, while majorities support the "practical poli- 
 tician." This reasoning, though conspicuously false in 
 fact, has many supporters. It is false in the assumption 
 that others go farther than we in America in false eco- 
 nomic systems. We represent the civilized portion of one 
 of the five continents. Surely this makes us responsible 
 for much. Second, to assume that the people of America 
 are incapable of appreciating the advantages of a course 
 which, if adopted, would undoubtedly lead to " immense 
 blessings," is far from flattering to their intellectual 
 capacities. Third, it puts a terribly low estimate on the 
 power of moral purpose ; this is where the great mistake 
 is made, when the would-be reformer allows it to deter 
 him from action in behalf of the right. And yet it does 
 deter. 
 
 Men of character, of the noblest purpose, see that dan- 
 gerous conditions are settling in upon us, and that every 
 good citizen is required to stand for that which is true 
 and right, and that only. Bishop Cleveland Coxe tells 
 us in America, that " we are confronted by the terrible 
 fact that we are undergoing changes similar to those 
 which have been the ruin of ancient peoples in many 
 examples." 
 
 Bishop Benjamin Whipple says : "Awful problems 
 stare us in the face — the centralization of swarms of 
 souls in the cities, the wealth of the nation in fewer 
 hands, competition making a life-and-death struggle." 
 Bishop Spalding points to dangers which already hover 
 over and around the great American Republic : " If we 
 have been able to found a durable state with what else- 
 where and hitherto has been the least stable kind of 
 government, our success is to be ascribed to causes, 
 
254 AMERICAN FARMS. 
 
 some of which have ceased to exist, while others are 
 disappearing." 
 
 Says Prof. Austin Phelps : " Turn whichever way we 
 will — South, West, North, East — we are confronted by 
 the same element of crisis in the outlook upon the future. 
 Every thing seems, to human view, to depend on pres- 
 ent and dissolving chances. Whatever can be done at 
 all must be done with speed." 
 
 Every thing warns us that this is no time for trifling 
 with principles. It is a time for great victories or great 
 failures. To whom and to what, then, are we to look for 
 deliverance ? 
 
 Says the scholarly Mr. George William Curtis : " They 
 are called visionaries who hold that morality is stronger 
 than a majority." " But," says he, " the educated re- 
 former of America has faith enough in the people to 
 appeal to them against themselves, for he knows that the 
 cardinal principle of popular government is the ability 
 of the people to correct their own errors." 
 
 It is true that the men who have led in great reforms, 
 as a rule, have been educated men ; but, they have been 
 men who have always stood out conspicously in their 
 precepts, and examples as independent self-sustaining 
 characters. They have been no parasites, but men of 
 moral courage : men who could give to the world more 
 than they expected to receive from it. We have such 
 to-day scattered all over our land — ^in our colleges, in 
 our school-rooms, in our editorial chairs, in our pulpits, 
 and in our courts of justice. But it is not with such only 
 that loyalty to high principles is recognized as the true 
 monitor in the decision of matters pertaining to family, 
 to society, to the state. It is found strong in the rank 
 and file, and nowhere stronger than with our rural 
 
THE CONCLUSION. 2-55 
 
 classes, however they may have stood aloof from any 
 practical part in the settlement of public questions, or 
 however they may have appeared merely as partisans. 
 
 Knowledge is power, and it is a greater power for 
 good than for evil ; but is a mighty power for evil. 
 Knowledge, though, is a greater power for good when 
 in possession of those whose occupations, habits, and 
 surroundings are calculated to develop morality and 
 virtue. Good knowledge and morality are correlatives. 
 In the rural classes, then, we may look for good knowl- 
 edge to be most extensively disseminated, and in the 
 greatest volume in the aggregate. 
 
 In America, in our day, that education which should 
 render men capable of doing valuable service for most 
 reforms is within the grasp of the average rural voter. It 
 is only required, in addition, that he become inspired by 
 real convictions. It has not been through men of profound 
 speech, or of brilliant oratory alone that reforms have 
 been wrought, but by all who are, to use an expression of 
 Emerson, " appointed by Almighty God to stand for a 
 fact." " Him who has the facts and can and will state 
 them people will listen to, though he is otherwise igno- 
 rant." It is this standing for facts that finally tells. 
 
 Reform's best weapon is the plain, unvarnished truth, 
 which strikes home to the heart of the humblest. Rich- 
 ard Cobden, when urging on his fellow leaguers in the 
 great reform to which he had pledged his life's best 
 efforts, said to them : " This is the work which requires 
 no gifts of oratory, or powerful public appeals ; it is a 
 labor in which men can be useful privately and without 
 ostentation." The same can be said of all great reforms 
 in which the people are interested. Yes ! the most of us 
 are eligible for service in the cause of truth. 
 
256 AMERICAN FARMS. 
 
 A belief in " the ability of the people to correct their 
 own errors " also implies a belief in their ability to see 
 their own errors. This awakening may be the hardest 
 part of reform. If the citizens of the Roman Republic 
 had been able, at some turning-point in its history, 
 to see their own errors in their true light, that civili- 
 zation might have gone on in its own development. We 
 may say the same of the Grecian, or any other of our 
 past civilizations. The lack of a proper realization of 
 error is a continual stumbling-block in itself, and is 
 ceaselessly working the downfall of men. Notwithstand- 
 ing, we have faith in the people of America, not only to 
 eventually see the right, but to act in its behalf. 
 
 When with such vexed social and political problems as 
 the difficulties now existing between labor and capital, 
 the distribution of land, the threatening power of combi- 
 nations of wealth, and reforms in our governing methods, 
 we affirm that we have faith in the people to solve them, 
 we also imply a belief in the sovereignty of the people. 
 Certainly in this we mean not merely a passive sover- 
 eignty, not only in the people being represented here 
 and there through an unpledged and uninstructed 
 leader, but a sovereignty in v/hich the individual citizen 
 acts the part of the true sovereign, and becomes respon- 
 sible for the welfare of his subjects. Therefore, with 
 such as we in America, where the people are empowered 
 to be the chief rulers, safety is always in the timely 
 action of the people, alive to a requisite appreciation of 
 truth, and realizing their responsibilities as sovereigns. 
 
 That portion of the people by whom error should be 
 the more easily recognized is composed of those in whom 
 morality and virtue more largely predominate. It follows 
 that all, be they clergymen, statesmen, judges, teachers, 
 
THE CONCLUSION. 
 
 257 
 
 merchants, fishermen, or mechanics, who believe in the 
 abstract right as the true expedient, and who believe in the 
 principles of liberty, justice, harmony, righteousness, and 
 peace, as the true element in forming the base on which 
 to found social and political systems, are natural allies 
 with our farmers in all reforms having this end in view. 
 Should they not be their natural allies in resisting the 
 forces which are now weaving the network of illiberal, 
 unjust, unchristian, soul-enslaving laws around the peo- 
 ple of America ? 
 
 Our paternal governments have sought for and formed 
 their alliances with wealth and the parts of society, social- 
 istic in their tendencies. They are plutocracies, made 
 powerful by sucking the blood of the state ; in league 
 with that part of the state which seeks relief from its 
 burdens by throwing them on the remainder. 
 
 Are not these really the two great parties about to en- 
 gage in a struggle which is not very far off ? The latter 
 party is already a consolidated, disciplined force, as we 
 have shown ; and it has the wealth of the country and 
 the greater number on its side. The former has yet to 
 bring its forces together. But are not thousands of our 
 own people willing to enter into the contest for reform ? 
 Will some only wait the rallying cry, while others are 
 waiting the command to march ? They are in the minor- 
 ity, but "morality is stronger than a majority." 
 
 We have long since come to the conclusion that we 
 have not been dealing, in this work, with an economic 
 question only, but a far-reaching moral question ; and that 
 when the moral question is settled, the economic question 
 will, necessarily, in a great measure, be of easy adjust- 
 ment. We must keep in view the fact that, nearly nineteen 
 hundred years ago, Christ came into the world to teach ' 
 
2S8 AMERICAN FARMS. 
 
 men a new morality ' ; to give men a higher conception 
 of human responsibility than they had hitherto known ; 
 a new, startling realization of the all-important truth that 
 the whole human race is one great brotherhood ; that 
 their rights are essentially equal ; that all through the 
 centuries that had gone before, an abnormal condition 
 had existed in the alienation of these rights from the great 
 majority of mankind ; that principles have no bounds. 
 
 It is indubitably correct that the human family have 
 been far too slow in grasping these truths, with even a 
 rudimentary conception of their immense importance to 
 man, or of the responsibilities they call upon him to 
 assume. We have much to assure us, however, that they 
 do sink into men's hearts, and influence their actions. 
 From the light they now furnish, error should be more 
 easily distinguished. Had it shone around men and 
 pierced their hearts in the earlier civilizations, who can 
 say that, notwithstanding, they would still have fallen ? 
 
 To this same morality we must look to shed a light 
 over those difficulties which now seem insurmountable. 
 Morality is stronger than a majority. 
 
 Men must one day scorn the thought of seeking priv- 
 ileges through legislation at the expense of others. The 
 day must come when all men will look upon the whole 
 system of protection as a mean, selfish, un-Christian bar- 
 barism of the past ; when free trade will not mean merely 
 liberty for particular interests, but justice to all ; when 
 no man will dare insult his fellow-men by insinuating 
 that they do not so far value liberty as to submit to a direct 
 burden as its cost, rather than to be cheated into it by 
 an indirect one ; when men will put no bounds to recti- 
 tude or justice ; when statesmen must look upon it as 
 ' Geikie. 
 
THE CONCLUSION. 
 
 259 
 
 childish and undignified in the extreme to be guided in 
 their policies in these matters by false systems of foreign 
 countries. 
 
 It was for no small purpose that our Saviour, when on 
 earth, taught men : " Whatsoever ye would that men 
 should do unto you, do ye even unto them." 
 
 We are no pessimists, no fatalists. We believe that 
 man is a being of high measures of perfectibility, not 
 only individually, but that he is one day to see his fellows 
 harmoniously and unitedly working out the great prob- 
 lems of social and industrial life with their brothers. 
 That principles shall grow and finally prevail in grand 
 triumph, we have implicit faith. Strip us of this pro- 
 spective faith, and life would be a delusion. 
 
 But while we feel all this, we are not blind to the fact 
 that many years may pass before we have reached that 
 happy state ; many years of hard, unflinching labor for 
 reform on the part of those who represent the true moral 
 forces of our country. After years of strife bet^yeen 
 nations, engendered and quickened by their irrational, 
 irritating fiscal policies ; after the communistic elements 
 of society, which our state socialisms have fostered into 
 active being, have joined the forces of "the Universal 
 Revolution " ; after myriads of our small land-holdings 
 have ceased to be, as such ; when the typical American 
 farmer Will be known only in history ; and, after years, 
 perhaps ages, of efforts to adjust all the abnormal con- 
 ditions which our unwise laws have occasioned, the truth 
 may finally prevail. 
 
 Can we permit this delay ? Shall we not strike for 
 reforms now, and'by so doing save years of suffering, 
 sorrow, and desolation in our land ? Shall not the moral 
 forces be concentrated for a mighty effort to purge our 
 
26o AMERICAN FARMS. 
 
 Western world from the disease which has fastened itself 
 upon it ? Surely we will not let the sun go down upon 
 our days without the consoling thought that we, in this 
 respect, have done something to make the world fairer, 
 brighter, happier, and better. 
 
 It is unwise for any citizen who desires the best good 
 for his country to shun the study ; or evade a part, in a 
 practical solution of these vexed political, economic, and 
 social problems. It is not reasonable for us to complain 
 of our evil laws, or of our law-makers, if we take no 
 responsibility in improving them, or do nothing in the 
 way of giving a moral backing to those who do. Plato's 
 remark that " the wise are punished for taking no part 
 in government, by being governed by worse people than 
 themselves," stilli holds good. 
 
 While from our pulpits and platforms proceed loud and 
 emphatic denunciations of the evils of selfishness, greed, 
 injustice, robbery, duplicity, fraud, and corruption ; the 
 people should know that some of the false systems which 
 engender these evils can, and will, be swept away, and 
 that they must take part in its accomplishment. And 
 while it is necessary that we place in our governing 
 bodies, men of genuine integrity, of wise foresight, and 
 strong purpose, to represent our views and to carry them 
 into the statute-books ; it should not be forgotten, that 
 it is necessary, that all who represent these sentiments 
 among the people become an active part of an organized 
 body of reformers. 
 
 It is the people's great question, and it is needless to 
 spend time trying to convert politicians. When the spirit 
 of reform sinks deep into the hearts of the people, and a 
 determination is shown to bring it about, the politician 
 is powerless to stay its progress. 
 
THE CONCLUSION. 26 1 
 
 The Cobdens, the Brights, the Peels, and the Glad- 
 stones are rare ; yet, when men of purpose do appear, 
 they should be borne up by the people. 
 
 If all who are heart and soul in sympathy with reform 
 will unite, and stand by the principles involved, they will 
 carry them through, in spite of parties. If they be ani- 
 mated by the spirit and determination which impelled 
 Cobden and his colleagues in their great work of freeing 
 the commerce of England, political parties cannot stand 
 in the way. Said Cobden : " We have nothing to do 
 with Whigs or Tories ; we are stronger than either of 
 them ; if we stick to our principles, we can, of necessity, 
 beat both." Speaking of himself, he said: "I seek no 
 alliance with parties, and I will take none ; but having 
 the feeling, I have the sacredness of the principle, and 
 I can never agree to tamper with it." So may it be with 
 the people who desire the true freedom of America — 
 freedom from false systems. May they rise and go be- 
 yond party ! May there be with them no compromising 
 of principles ! If defeat comes, let it come, once, twice, 
 thrice, or more ; but may there be no surrender ! May 
 they hold out as Abraham Lincoln did when facing the 
 great crisis in his party, and as expressed in his exclama- 
 tion, " If I must go down, then let me go down linked to 
 truth — die in the advocacy of what is right and just ! " 
 
 " Morality is stronger than a majority." 
 
 And now we have accomplished Our part of what we 
 have considered to be a duty — in some respects a cheer- 
 ful, and in some respects an onerous, duty ; but in all 
 respects a conscientious one ; a duty to our country ; a 
 duty to ourselves, and to others who are suffering. 
 
 We leave the question, for the present, to the good 
 people of Canada and of the United States. It is of in- 
 
262 AMERICAN FARMS. 
 
 tense importance to each, and especially to the farmers. 
 May they put forth new energy in the cause of rectify- 
 ing this great mistake of our day : that of legislating the 
 annihilation of the Typical American Farm and the 
 Typical American Farmer — a wrong to the best interests 
 of their country, a wrong to the universal brotherhood, 
 a wrong to themselves especially, and a grievous wrong 
 to their children, who are soon to take their places in the 
 battle of life. 
 
 The century which has seen in America freedom 
 gained for the slave, in what may well be called " The 
 Last Crusade," is drawing to a close ; but there is space 
 left in it yet to win one more holy war ; a victory which 
 will confer upon all, the blessings of that equality in 
 economic rights, , without which, they can scarcely be 
 called freemen. 
 
 THE END. 
 
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