THE FARMER'S WAR AGAINST MONOPOLIES. 311 



sume the wheat- which that farm would produce. Until 

 hands in manufacturing establishments eat very much 

 more than they are able to do at present, and manufac- 

 turers establish themselves without regard to natural 

 facilities and resources, the great agricultural States will 

 continue to produce a surplus of cereals. The costly 

 Exchange of products between farms and factories widely 

 separated, supports a class which consumes nearly half 

 as much as do the hands employed in manufactures. 

 In the year 1871, about thirty-nine per cent, of the 

 wheat grown in this country was consumed by farmers 

 and those dependent upon them ; about eighteen per 

 cent, by persons employed in manufactures and those 

 dependent upon them; about eighteen per cent, by those 

 engaged in personal and professional services and others 

 dependent upon them ; about eight per cent, by persons 

 engaged in trade and transportation and their depen- 

 dents; and the rest, about seventeen per cent., was 

 exported. The surplus of cereals in the North-western 

 States, therefore, is not the result of accident or mis- 

 taken Avhim, but the inevitable consequence of fixed 

 laws. Increasing density of population and cost of 

 land steadily drive the larger operations of agriculture 

 to regions mo e remote from the great centres of popu- 

 lation, manufactures, and commerce, and to fresher and 

 cheaper lands. New York produces less wheat and less 

 corn than it did twenty years ago. The cost of moving 

 the ever-increasing surplus of agricultural States, over 

 a steadily increasing distance, to points where it is 

 needed to supply an ever-increasing deficit in produc- 

 tion, is a condition of the growth and prosperity of agri- 

 culture in this country which it cannot escape." 1 

 * "VT. M. Grosvenor. 



