390 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



elevate both men and women. Our duty is not only to make 

 farmers and farmers' wives better understand their worth and 

 wants, to make farming an intellectual profession — to give labor 

 a just reward — but it is our duty to make it a profession of honor 

 and influence in our social and political system. We must have a 

 basis of political stability and prosperity, not only agricultural 

 skill and mechanical invention, but also diffusion of that kind of 

 knowledge which makes our farmers and their families honor their 

 pursuit, and love the rural scenes amid which they are carried on. 



Said a farmer to us, not long since, " How is it we allow mid- 

 dlemen to make such profits ? Farmers sell their beef at seven 

 dollars a cwt.; then what they buy back to use in their families, 

 they pay from 16 to 20 cents per pound. It is so with every thing 

 we have to sell. We sell our milk about Boston for four cents a 

 quart, and the people in the city pay eight cents for it after it has 

 been topped for cream, and the residue watered at that." Unless 

 the cans are topped for cream, where are the numerous cans of 

 cream sold in the market obtained ? Echo answers, ivhere? 



A suburban farmer asked the other day, " How is it that I give 

 twelve cents a pound for shin beef and thirty-five for sirloin V 

 So it is whether it be milk, eggs, beef, butter or aught else. Let 

 there be fewer shopmen, less profit to them ; better remuneration 

 to producers, lower prices to the consumers ; then all parties but 

 non-producing middlemen will be benefitted. It is time pro- 

 ducers should have their share of the profits of labor and capital 

 invested by them. Why should men of no more natural ability 

 than they, be suffered to grow rich from off the products of labor, 

 while laborers struggle hard to make a bare subsistence. Is it not 

 bo everywhere ? Are not parasites feeding upon iudustry and the 

 producing classes in all places ? How shall the remedy be applied 

 — what shall the remedy be — is there any effectual remedy ? Any 

 means that shall bring the producer and consumer together, at 

 proper times, will render middle-men unnecessary. 



The parasite who ranges the country picking up products the 

 farmer might just as well market himself, and save toll thereby, is 

 of no real benefit to society. Say you, this dealer in truck is 

 handy ? So he is ; let's consider a moment and see. He pur- 

 chases a lamb of one farmer for four dollars, kills and markets 

 him, with half a dozen others, for eight dollars. Handy to take 

 four dollars from the farmer's pockets on every lamb marketed, 

 which the farmers themselves could just as well do. So with 



