26 The Tariff and the Farmer. 



be able in a few years to pay down the small part usually 

 required to purchase on mortgage? He would naturally 

 desire to do so to have a permanent home, and secure to 

 himself the improvements he made. After giving a mort- 

 gage fifteen or twenty years should see the man free 

 from debt. But here in these old settled states, where 

 farms rarely change owners, after the lapse of a hun- 

 dred years the profits are so small that the owners are 

 getting rid of them either by leasing, selling, or, where 

 this is impossible, by abandoning them. The process 

 known as ' ' skinning ' ' is under full swing, where the man 

 in transient possession by lease robs the farm of its fer- 

 tility, giving back nothing or little. 



(b) The almost imperceptible gain in total annual 

 value of agricultural products against most surprising 

 manufacturing gains (see chapter VIII). 



The amount of capital invested in agriculture has 

 increased four-fold since 1850; the number of farjns 

 three-fold; the quick-moving horse has been substituted 

 for the slow-going ox, and there has been great improve- 

 ment in farm machinery and methods. Also, the number 

 of people to feed and provide with raw material for 

 clothing has increased two and one-half fold, and there 

 has been a vast increase of live stock to feed. Further, 

 the value of agricultural exports has increased nearly 

 five-fold. Yet Mr. S. N. D. North, a prominent super- 

 visor of the census of 1900, states that the annual value 

 of agricultural products in fifty years has increased less 

 than two-fold. 



The same official credits manufacture with a twelve- 

 fold increase in value of products, though the number of 

 wage-earners had increased but four and one-half fold. 

 The nominal increase of capital invested was seventeen- 



