WARSAW HORTICULTUEAL SOCIETY. 333 



week that it did not rain. Perhaps this is enough for the trip. 

 Why should men be contented here? The farmers here can raise 

 ten acres of ordinary farm products with the same help and at less 

 expense than his eastern brother can do. He can market his pro- 

 ducts at a better profit than he can, leaving a very good margin in 

 favor of the western farmer. In fact, the ordinary western farmer 

 wastes more than many of them can possibly raise. The farmer who 

 raises a good crop there has to apply a good crop of fertilizer each 

 year, equal to, or greater than, the crop he takes off. Some of the 

 things that made me think more of Illinois was harvesting with 

 scythes, wading about, with rubber boots on, in bogs and swamps, 

 mowing grass and carrying it out with forks, where it might cure 

 and be gotten at with teams, and oxen at that. Again, thej have to 

 feed from their barns seven or eight months in the year. If they 

 have stock to fatten, it costs them about as much as they get for it. 

 There is little local market for fat stock. Local butchers can buy 

 just as cheap what suits them better. Chicago beef and pork, nicely 

 dressed, shipped in refrigerator cars, and packed in nice store-houses, 

 takes the eastern meat trade. Most of the railroad towns have their 

 headquarters for Chicago meat. 



For a hundred miles or more outside the large cities milk-trains 

 run daily, carrying another of the important farm products at prices 

 that, I fear, the western farmer would say, too small for me. Every 

 man must get out in the morning, do his milking, put it in cans fur- 

 nished for the purpose, holding ten quarts, take it to the station for 

 early trains at prices varying from eight cents to twenty-two cents per 

 can, according to the time of year; yet most of them say this pays — 

 the best of anything they can do. Another saying that is true, is that 

 the boys have left the farm. Many of the old men are yet working 

 away, but the boys are in the cities, in store or manufactories. The 

 farms are consolidating. Where there used to be farms of a few 

 acres they now number hundreds, and vary in price from five to fifty 

 dollars per acre, and are generally poor property at any price. It 

 seems to me that people and places are deteriorating. 



Except in the manufacturing centers, there is but little being 

 done. Farms, that a few years ago were to all appearances paying, 

 have been turned to pasture. The highways are, many of them, 

 kept clear enough for one team, a person needing to watch for pas- 

 sing room. Everything seems small, crowded and uncomfortable. 

 Homes are kept in good repair, usually, and buildings well painted. 

 The general explanation is, " Oh, you Westerners can furnish us 

 what we need cheaper than we can raise it," and they do not raise 

 much — very little small fruit — the wild growing abundantly in the 

 neglected fields. I think from leaving home to the Hudson we did 

 not see a wagon-load of apples. After going into Massachusetts we 

 saw some apples, and some of the most beautiful pear orchards I 

 ever saw — literally loaded to the ground with fruit. The pear or- 



