50 MONTHLY JOURNAL OF AGRICULTURE. 



As the question must arise, in the mind of the reader, how can these people 

 live, in these countries where the price of meats is nearly or quite as great as 

 here ? the best way we can answer it is by setting forth their usual dietary, 

 in which the naked truth is that meat has no place, or very rarely ; for, as 

 we learn from a modern, candid, and intelligent writer on the Industry of the 

 Rhine, " in the morning the laborers get their pumpernickel, or black rye bread, 

 and milk ; in the forenoon, potatoes, with such ' kitchen ' or meat along with 

 them as they can obtain from one pig, which they sometimes fatten through the 

 year ; and, in the evening, either bread and milk, or simply rye meal and brose. 



*' Here," says this writer, expressly, " we shall only remark that, for want of 

 other occupations, the wages of laborers are exceedingly low, averaging from ten 

 pence to one shilling per day for men, and seven pence to eight pence for women. 

 If food be given, then three pence half-penny a day is all that is added in money. 

 On the larger farms, four pounds ($20) is all the pay of the farm-servants — 

 whose board is valued at five pounds ($25). From this and the adjacent dis- 

 tricts, the greatest number of emigrants proceed amiually to America.'''' 



Now, against this, we yesterday visited a farm of 130 acres, belonging to Mr. 

 Townsend, of Long Island, managed with extraordinary judgment and economy, 

 as proved by its luxuriant crops and profitable results. He gives to one man, 

 who has been with him ten years, $10 a month, or six times as much as such a 

 man would get in Germany, in money, and, besides that, board far above the 

 customary dietary of the wealthy in Germany — such living as would give a man 

 the dyspepsia, were it not for the wholesome labor and glorious air of the coun- 

 try. Yet Mr. Townsend does not suppose he could make money by wheat, even 

 at one dollar a bushel, though he reaps from 20 to 25 bushels to the acre ; but 

 has recourse to it only as a mere paying crop to nurse and protect his young grass 

 crop. 



It is against laborers in Europe, receiving such wages and so accustomed to 

 live, or against immigrant neighbors who have been accustomed to such pay 

 and such living in the countries from which they come, that American farmers 

 have to contend ; and hence we conclude that no increase of importation, under 

 the repeal of the corn-laws in England, is going to open a materially higher mar- 

 ket for the grain-farmer of the United States. 



Shy it as we may, there is one palpable fact which cannot be overcome: the 

 long peace which has prevailed, with some inconsiderable exceptions, through- 

 out the world, has turned so many swords into plow-shares — has made so many 

 producers in place of consumers — that agricultural production is everywhere over- 

 done ; and again, the application of steam to railroads and to the navigation of 

 long rivers, by quickening and cheapening transportation, has brought so much 

 new and rich land under the plow which had been otherwise too distant to be 

 cultivated with profit, that this, too, has proved a fruitful source of over-produc- 

 tion and low prices. 



The same traveler to whom we have already referred, remarking on the In- 

 dustry of the Rhine, says, " the German farmer can afford to sell his wheat and 

 carry it to the ship for 30 shillings sterling (or $7 50) per quarter (eight bushels ;) 

 and for freight per quarter, from Dantzic to England, 20 cents per bushel is con- 

 sidered a fair average price : hence," " says he, it follows that wheat, grown in the 

 north of Germany, can be sold in an English market at 41s. 6d. the quarter, with 

 a sufficient profit to the German cultivator." And it was very lately that it was 

 stated in an English paper that a cargo of wheat was lying at the wharf at 



(Ufi) 



