186 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Jan. 



and the causes are general, not local. It is in the West as 

 well as in the East, and cattle growers of the plains and 

 wheat growers in Dakota are complaining as loudly as the 

 New England farmers. It extends to the old world, and 

 those countries once the most prosperous in agriculture feel 

 it the worst to-day. It is worse in Old England than in 

 New England ; Germany is groaning under it, and France 

 is bemoaning it. It is sending thousands of depressed peas- 

 ants from sunny Italy to our shores, hoping to escape the 

 pressure that has fallen on them there. The causes for such 

 a wide-spread condition of things must be also wide-spread. 

 They are not local, and the disease cannot be cured by any 

 local remedy. 



The politicians in all the countries are seizing upon the 

 facts to gain advantage for their own views, promising to 

 cure the trouble by local legislation. In the United States 

 and New England we are told that our agricultural depres- 

 sion is caused by our protective tariff ; in Great Britain and 

 Old England the politicians say it is caused l)y their lack of 

 a protective tariff, — they attribute it to free trade ; in Ger- 

 many the politicians tell the peasants it is caused by a stand- 

 ing army ; in France they are told that it is caused by the 

 overbearing attitude of Germany ; in Italy, because of a 

 change in the political status : and so on, here one thing, 

 there another ; but in each case the remedy they tell us is to 

 be brought about in some political way, l)y a change of 

 administration or by local legislation. 



The real causes are economic, and belong neither especially 

 to tariff nor to no tariff, to republics, limited monarchies or 

 absolute monarchies. The cause lies in the changed rela- 

 tions between the city and country populations, which have 

 been brought about by three great factors that are the 

 results of modern science and modern invention. First, and 

 most important, are the new methods of transportation both 

 of men and of products. Food can now be transported great 

 distances very cheaply, and in good condition. Great cities 

 may now be fed to an extent that has been impossible in all 

 previous ages. Second, sanitary science has made it possi- 

 ble to guard cities against desolating pestilences, and to 

 make them almost as healthy as the country for a working 



