202 Bureau of Farmers' Institutes. 



we gainiujr, what ean we possibly gain, bv this frantic, breath- 

 less haste to derclop, to fill up our whole cuuutry with peujile, 

 any and every kind of people, foreigners very largely, the oflf- 

 Bcourings of the earth in no small part? ^Yhoever has leaned on 

 the forward rail of a westbound Atlantic steamer and watched 

 for a while the immigrants on the steerage deck below, as I have 

 done many times, must pray earnestly for the day when America 

 shall most definitely go out of the business of offering an asylum 

 to the dow^ntrodden of every clime. What does it profit us? For 

 my own part, I think the development, the filling up, is going on 

 far too rapidly to be a healthy process; and I am very sure that 

 the not inconsiderable fraction that comes to us yearly from 

 abroad is something that we could very, very well manage to dis- 

 pense with. ^ 



And now for what is after all the one main point of practical 

 interest. How are we injured — we, the farmers of the Eastern 

 States, and the classes that depend directly upon the farmers of 

 the Eastern States for prosperity — in what way, definitely and 

 exactly, are we injured by the liberality of the government in 

 giving away its wild lands, our wild lands, as fast as possible, to 

 anybody and everybody that will take them? 



In the first place, of course one thinks naturally of the competi- 

 tion of the products of the new farms, in the markets of the world. 

 I am inclined myself to the opinion that the Injury in this direction 

 is rather less than might be supposed, and that it is in fact very 

 far from being the darkest element of the problem. The growth 

 of population must of itself take care of the increased production, 

 in part The new farmers need an infinity of things that they 

 cannot possibly produce. That helps manufactures; manufac- 

 tures require workmen; workmen must eat; and thus the estab- 

 lished farmers of the older regions will find a certain increase in 

 the demand for their products, making up, in part, for the new 

 supply thrown upon the market by their increasing competitors. 

 And then again, the price of breadstuffs is very largely governed 

 by the yield of crops abroad and the occurrences of every kind 

 that take place in foreign countries. "VSTieat may bring a high 

 price, though the American crop be immense; it may go begging, 

 though our fields yield the scantiest return. Still, of course, it is 



