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purchasing a greater quantity of manufactured articles than he was ever 

 before able to do in the history of the world. The figures of the census 

 of 1890 compared with those of 1880 prove the falsity of the saying com- 

 monly heard from the lips of profesisonal agitators and of the ignorant 

 that the rich are growing richer and tlie poor are growing poorer. The 

 figures show, on the contrary, that in the ten years considered the whole 

 people were growing richer and the poor were growing fewer. 



I have seen no figures of the consumption of farm products other than 

 the great staples, but I have no doubt that if the statistics could have 

 been collected they would show that there was in the same period a 

 great increase in the consumption of those articles grown by the farmer 

 that are usually considered luxuries, such as spring chickens and lamb, 

 green peas and asparagus, the finer fruits, early vegetables, melons, the 

 finer cheeses, cream and ice cream. The increased use of flowers for 

 decorative purposes is a matter of common knowledge, as is also the 

 increase in the purchase of fine fruit trees and of shade trees by the 

 suburban cottager. I have no doubt, also, that a comparison of these 

 years, if it could be made, would show an improvement in the grades of 

 horses and cattle. 



The conclusions which I wish to draw from these facts are these: 1. 

 The increase in consuming power of the people of the United States, 

 growing faster than the increase in population, is the normal condition. 

 If temporarily suspended for a few years, by financial depression, it will 

 again take place in even greater degree. 2. The people will consume 

 more of the finer productions of the farmer, those which may be classed 

 as luxuries, while the consumption of the staple grains, wheat, corn, 

 oats and rye, per capita, may remain about stationary. 3. The increased 

 development of manufacturing, which is the chief cause of the increase 

 of wealth of the community, will continue to make our cities and towns 

 grow larger and provide a larger home market for the near-by farmer 

 of those products which he can supply to better advantage that the more 

 distant farmer, while the staple grains will be supplied from the lands 

 best adapted to produce them, even if they are a thousand miles or more 

 distant from the manufacturing cities. 



The farming of the future in the great manufacturing states, of which 

 Michigan is one, will be characterized by variety of crops and by finer 

 grades of products, both vegetable and animal. In earlier times the 

 articles of food consumed by the great bulk of the community were 

 few in number and common in kind. Salt pork and corn bread, ''hog 

 and hominy," potatoes and gravy, rye bread and molasses, were the 

 staple articles of diet, while white wheat bread, porterhouse steaks and 

 grass butter were luxuries for special occasions. The farmer in those 

 times had plenty of hard work, with his lack of modern machinery. His 

 education in the science of farming was such as he obtained from his 

 father while at work on the farm, and his farming methods were those 

 of his grandfather. His farming education, such as it was, was suffi- 

 cient for his needs, for if he learned how to raise corn and hogs on the 

 old farm as well as his father did, what more was there to be learned? 

 No need then for books on agriculture, for Farmers' Institutes, still less 

 for an Agricultural College. What good could chemistry do on a farm 

 in those days, and what farmer then ever heard of entomology or bac- 

 teriology? 



