70 LAND AND LABOR. 



which they have had their greatest development, but 

 covers our whole country and is revolutionizing Eu- 

 rope. Throughout our land there is a marked decad- 

 ence in small farming, with increase of poverty and 

 distress among the farmers. So long as the farmer 

 could find a ready market for his products, at good 

 prices, that was indicated by wheat when in demand 

 upon the farm at one dollar and a quarter to one dol- 

 lar and fifty cents the bushel, he prospered. When 

 Mr. Dalrymple was compelled to pay two dollars a 

 bushel for his seed wheat, and sold his crop for one 

 dollar and eighty-three cents, not only did he but all 

 classes prospered none more than the merchant and 

 capitalist. But now, when wheat upon the farm will 

 command only from fifty to seventy cents a bushel, 

 not only are the small farmers of our country being 

 ruined, but the farmers of England are being de- 

 stroyed, and the agriculture of that country, also, is 

 dragged to inevitable demoralization. 



By the impoverishment of our farmers we are ena- 

 bled to " beneficently compete " with the English far- 

 mer, and sell wheat in that country at less than one 

 dollar a bushc-l, with profit to the foreign merchant 

 and carrier, when the absolute cost to the British 

 agriculturist to raise it is not less than one dollar 

 and a half our farmers raising but twenty bushels 

 to the acre where the English farmers grow thirty. 

 The result is, that by one and the same operation the 

 small farm interest in the United States, and the gen- 

 ( nil fanning interests of Great Britain arc both de- 

 stroyed. Both countries arc being dragged into revo- 

 lution, and the only interests that derive even an 



