358 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



farms ; observing insects, inquiring into the reason of blights and 

 rusts, noticing the effect of different constituents of plant-food 

 upon their crops ; helping on their neighbors in the work ; and are 

 forming societies, and holding institutes, where they are discuss- 

 ing the scientific and economic problems of their lives with ever- 

 increasing ardor and intelligence. Accustomed from their boy- 

 hood to drudgery, from their manhood to labor through all the 

 hours of daylight, they have made a living and, with few excep- 

 tions, nothing more. A brighter future, however, lies before them. 

 Our unoccupied arable lands will soon be exhausted, and popula- 

 tion is ever on the increase. The farmers will co-operate more 

 and more with our experiment stations, will find more and more 

 beauty in their surroundings and with increased facilities and 

 increased knowledge will take the place which belongs to them in 

 our government and in our nation. 



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A COMING SOLUTION OF THE CURRENCY QUESTION. 



By CHAELES S. ASHLEY. 



IT is obvious that the present agitation for the free and unlim- 

 ited coinage of silver derives its real strength mainly from 

 a general feeling that the cheapening of the standard dollar would 

 make it easier to pay off existing debts. 



The great farmer class of the central States have seen their 

 farms shrink in value fifty per cent in ten years have seen the 

 value of the annual product steadily falling ; and in thousands of 

 cases have found a purchase-money mortgage, after being half 

 paid off, still equal to the selling value of the farm. It is natural 

 and inevitable that the causes of this calamity should be largely 

 attributed to the classes who have during the same period been 

 growing steadily richer, and that the great agricultural class 

 should turn to a cheaper currency as a remedy for debts harder 

 to pay. 



This is no new phenomenon. English kings, centuries back, 

 when encumbered with debt, solved their difficulties by the easy 

 method of paying their creditors with half the amount of precious 

 metal they had agreed to pay merely going through the formality 

 of stamping the half by the same name as the whole had formerly 

 borne. Thus the English pound sterling, like the French livre, is 

 said originally to have been a pound weight (troy) of pure silver. 

 Now it is equal to less than half that amount. Bluff King Hal 

 the Eighth put two parts alloy to one part of silver into his coins, 

 instead of one part alloy to twelve of silver, as had been and is 

 now the rule. Anything to get the better of the Jew money-lend- 



