1868. 



NEW ENGLAND FARIVIER. 



145 



SOMETHING MYSTERIOUS. 

 Heretofore, in the commercial history of 

 this country the products of the farm have 

 been among the first of the goods and wares 

 in market to depreciate in price on the ap- 

 proach of hard times. Whenever business 

 has slackened, city and village people have 

 found the cost of living greatly if not propor- 

 tionally reduced. But this year, while facto- 

 ries and shops are cutting down pay or time, 

 or discharging their employees entirely ; while 

 clothing, house rent, and some other items of 

 family expense are offered at materially re- 

 duced rates, flour and meat, corn and vegeta- 

 bles, butter and eggs remain firm at "war 

 prices." To families dependent on employ- 

 ment that has been partially or wholly cut off, 

 or on salaries that have been reduced, and are 

 likely to be entirely suspended, this unusual 

 state of things is not only mysterious, but it is 

 uncomfortably alarming. In cities and villages 

 it is about as common a topic of conversation, 

 as the weather. We hear it discussed in the 

 streets, in the cars, at the market, at the eat- 

 ing-houses, — in fact wherever consumers meet 

 and converse. Very many ascribe it to the 

 "speculators" and "middle men," but few 

 seem to regard this as entirely satisfactory, as 

 it is well known that speculators and middle 

 men have operated in other times as well as in 

 these latter days. After full discussion, and 

 after carefully weighing all familiar "disturb- 

 ing causes," the conclusion often reached is, 

 that there is something mysterious in the pres- 

 ent state of the produce market. 



To our own mind there is nothing at all 

 mysterious in this anomalous state of things, 

 though we admit there is good reason for the 

 alarm that exists. Produce is high and is 

 likely to remain high, simply because the con- 

 sumers are many and the producers are few. 

 Cause is merely working out its inevitable 

 effect. The demand exceeds the supply. 

 .There are more mouths open for "steak, thick 

 and rare," than there are hands feeding the 

 stalled ox ; more eggs taken from the basket 

 than are put in, — and people wonder that beef 

 is scarce and that the basket is empty. 



Business, like the ocean, has its ebb and 

 flow. For years past the cities and villages 

 have waxed and the country has waned. 

 Young men and young women have left the 

 rural districts for the commercial centres in 



sufficient numbers to afford, to our mind, a 

 perfectly satisfactory explanation of whatever 

 may appear strange in the present condition of 

 business affairs. 



If this view of the subject is correct, we 

 need not extend our remarks by an attempt to 

 point out the lesson it affords to both producer 

 and consumer. 



OUR CHEESE. 



When Thomas Jefferson was elected Presi- 

 dent, some of his agricultural friends in 

 Cheshire, Berkshire Co., Mass., united in 

 making a huge cheese that weighed 1600 

 pounds was loaded. It into a sleigh and 

 driven by Elder John Leland all the way to 

 Washington and duly presented to his Excel- 

 lency. That was not our cheese ! 



In Ontario County, Can., a cheese was made 

 a year or two ago by Her Majesty's loyal sub- 

 jects, which was said to weigh some 7000 

 pounds. It was exhibited at the State Fair at 

 Saratoga, N. Y., and other places, and was 

 finally, we believe, sent to Europe. Of course, 

 tliat was not our cheese. 



In the manufacture of both of these cheeses, 

 the multitude, the mass, the mob had a hand; 

 and who knows that all these hands were 

 clean? A contemporary poet, in describing 

 the manner in which the materials of the cheese 

 first mentioned were collected, says : — 



"The quivering curd in panniers stowed, 



Is loaded on the jade, 

 The stumbling beast supports the load, 

 "While trickling whey bedews the road, 



Along the dusty glade." 



Our cheese was the result of no such con- 

 glomerate, nor was it produced by any such 

 multitudinous rabble. We know who strained 

 the milk, who prepared the rennet and cleaned 

 the utensils ; whose fingers manipulated the 

 curd, and whose hands smoothed the surface 

 of this triumph of the dairy. These hands and 

 these fingers belong to no factory superinten- 

 dent or careless operative, but to a neat wo- 

 man ; the tidy, skilful wife of one of the best 

 farmers of one of the best towns in the State of 

 New Hampshire — a town to which, by the way, 

 both of the present agricultural editors of the 

 Farmer now owe allegiance, on the European 

 doctrine of "once a citizen always a citizen." 



A full Board of the "We" of the Farmer 

 having tested and tasted, and unanimously 

 pronounced our cheese to be good, — very 

 good, — excellent, — we take much pleasure in 



