16 The Tariff and the Farmer. 



been the United States, a policy which has notably 

 affected the agricultural supremacy of the latter country 

 in the world 's market. ' ^ 



By referring to chapter III it will be seen that the 

 little free trade nation of Great Britain takes much more 

 than half of all our agricultural products, which goes far 

 to confirm the assertion that were the ports of all nations 

 equally open to us, there would be a vast increase in value 

 of agricultural exports. The American policy has sent 

 the European workmen into the fields instead of into the 

 shops; it has tended to develop other agricultural 

 nations at the expense of our farmers. 



This brings us to the inquiry of the effect upon agri- 

 culture of a greatly restricted market (see chapter IV). 



The number of farms in the United St^ites in 1850 was 

 1,449,073; in 1860, 2,044,077; in 1900, the number had 

 risen to 5,739,657. From 1860-1900 the average annual 

 increase was over 92,000 farms. This great increase 

 came primarily from the opening up of the country by 

 the railroad system. But it was greatly hastened by the 

 policy adopted by Congress of giving away farms. 



With such a tremendous development taking place, 

 largely due to the action of Congress, it would seem to be 

 incumbent upon that body to do everything possible to 

 open out avenues of trade in foreign lands, and thus vvo- 

 tect the agricultural interests from the evil effect of an 

 ever-increasing surplus. Instead of this, legislation was 

 enacted that well might have closed every foreign door 

 to our products. Instead of rendering aid to farmers 

 whose home market was flooded with western products, 

 Congress did what it could to make the position more 

 difficult. Had manufacturers been in the place of farm- 

 ers, there would have been no protective duties, but the 



