1880.] 



AND HORTICULTURIST. 



875 



est and cheapest, but which is the cheapest :ind 

 best. 



To decide this we have to look on two pictures. 

 Mr. Mona:redien, in his sincere friendship for 

 the western former, would have him send all his 

 crops to Europe and pay a host of middlemen 

 to buy in Europe and bring to him what he 

 needs that he cannot raise himself. The west- 

 ern country, as it can raise corn more cheaply 

 than England, should be content with being a 

 huge farm for English people; and in that event, 

 as Mr. Mongredien figures it out, they would save 

 a few dollars in cash per annum, in so far as the 

 mere purchases of these immediate necessaries 

 of life are concerned. But the ' western farmer " 

 the lew past years, has learned a thing or two 

 which his " sincere friends " over the way had 

 forgotten to tell him ; that there is such a thing 

 as saving at the spigot and wasting at the bung ; 

 and while he was saving a dime by going to his 

 English friends with his products, he was losing 

 a dollar elsewhere. His " virgin soil " will some 

 day be espoused to agriculture. It must then 

 have manure, and this can always be had from 

 towns and cities near him. The time comes 

 when he cannot do all the work himself, he must 

 have cheap labor, either in the shape of human 

 muscle or machinery, and he wants these as 

 near as possible to him, that he may get them 

 on emergencies. He wants his children to be 

 intelligent and cultured, and to have religious 

 associations and refined companionship ; and he 

 knows that these only come from making nu- 

 merous prosperous towns and villages over the 

 length and breadth of this huge western farm. 

 Besides all this, the western farmer is quite as 

 much interested in the increased value of his 

 land as in the price a bushel of corn will 

 bring in London. So long as Europe is his only 

 market his land will be of no more value than 

 the principal sum represented by the profit on 

 his acre of grain. It could never be worth over 

 ten dollars an acre. But as soon as a town gets 

 near him, he can sell milk, butter, eggs, chickens, 

 cabbages, tomatoes, strawberries and raspberries; 

 Norway spruces and Norway maples ; roses and 

 verbenas, or thousands of things that he could 

 never dispose of in his "European market," and 

 the result is, that from five to ten dollars his land 

 goes to fifty, one hundred, or even two hundred 

 dollars or more an acre, because of the facilities 

 with which all these little extras can be turned 

 into cash. The western farmer has been acting 

 on this principle for some years past. Towns 



and villages have sprung up everywhere about 

 him. Manufacturers are prospering at his elbow, 

 and buy almost everything he has to sell. Fruits 

 and vegetables, and trees and flowers are in con- 

 stant demand by these growing communities, 

 and make profitable livings for thousands, who 

 are in turn consumers of the farmer's bread and 

 meat. 



And here is the point of the whole argument. 

 Is it wise to break up all these flourishing cen- 

 tres, which bring us in hundreds of dollars, sim- 

 ply because we might save tens by buying in 

 the "cheapest" market? Mr. Mongredien thinks 

 it would be. He does not seem to have heard 

 that a man may be penny-wi.se and pound- 

 foolish. 



We have thus given our opinion of this work 

 without any reference to party politics, which 

 is out of the line of the Gardener's Monthly. 

 If the policy of the Democrats or the Republi- 

 cans, or of the Protectionists or the Free Trader, 

 will do' the most to make western towns and 

 western industries flourish, go in for any of 

 them ; but it is folly to believe that the western 

 farmer or fruit grower has any interest of conse- 

 quence that is not also the interest of every 

 flourishing industry in his own neighborhood. 



The Virginias. — Virginia according to the 

 official figures just issued, has only increased 

 twenty per cent, in population during the last 

 ten years. It is one of the most magnificent 

 States in the Union ; the only want is an indus- 

 trial population that can make use of the tre- 

 mendous advantages everywhere about them. 

 One of the most useful men in the State is Major 

 Jed. Hotchkiss. He has devoted his whole life 

 to the development of the industries of Virginia. 

 Those of us who were on the agricultural editorial 

 excursion through the State in 1871, remember 

 well how much we learned from his thorough 

 knowledge of the industries of the State. 



Pa.ssing through Staunton recently with a 

 small party in pursuit of scientific knowledge, 

 we found him hard at work on a monthly serial, 

 the Virginias, — that is Old and West Virginia — 

 still with the old object, the development of in- 

 dustry. Virginia should honor such men. It 

 may be all very well to boast of being the mother 

 of Presidents, but to be the father of movements 

 that will set a hundred thousand men to work to 

 make a poor State rich, is just as much worthy 

 of being boasted of. Though, as a Union oflScer 

 at our elbow reminds us, "That Major Hotchkisa 



