Commissioner of Agriculture. 125 



tries domestic commodities, merchandise and products aggregat- 

 ing in value, |793,000,UU0. The aggregate value of the agricul- 

 tural products included in that sum was |553,215,317. Of the 

 total exports Europe received a valuation of $628,000,000 or 79 

 per cent of the whole. 



Thus American agriculture after feeding itself and all the 

 towns, villages and cities of the United States, has also sold in the 

 outside world's markets more than $500,000,000 worth of products. 

 So the farmers of the United States have furnished 69.68 per cent, 

 of the value of all the exports from their country during the year 

 1895. 



But this large number of consumers, consisting not only of our 

 own citizens, but of the citizens of all nations, have not been 

 gratuitously fed, though their supplies have been constant and 

 abundant. With sound money of the least fluctuating buying 

 power, money on a parity with and convertible into gold the world 

 over — American farmers have been remunerated for their pro- 

 ducts. 



The exact amount paid for the products of agriculture consumed 

 in the United States during the year is not known, but it must have 

 aggregated hundreds of millions of dollars. But all the products, 

 1. e., those consumed at home and abroad were in 



1870, (including betterments and additions to stock) |2,447,538,658 

 1880, (including betterments and additions to stock) 2,212,540,927 

 1890, (including betterments and additions to stock) 2,460,107,454 



No absolutely creditable method of estimating products for 

 1895 is available at this time, but since production has not in- 

 creased to any considerable extent, and the farm value of many of 

 the chief products has decreased to a remarkable extent, it seems 

 reasonable to assume a decrease in the total valuation of farm 

 products since 1890. Say, as a rough approximation, the valuation 

 is $2,300,000,000. 



In the presence of these facts, in the front of these figures 

 demonstrating that agriculture in this Republic has during the 

 year fed itself, supplied all citizens of the Union engaged in other 

 vocations, and then shipped abroad a surplus of over $500,000,000 

 worth of its products, how" can anyone dare to assert that farming 

 is generally unremunerative and unsatisfactory to those who in- 

 telligently follow it? 



How can the 42 per cent, of the population of the United States 

 which feeds the other 58 per cent, and then furnishes more than 

 69 per cent, of all the exports of the whole people be making less 



