PRODUCTION AND CONSUMPTION. 105 



and other causes may aid in influencing or in increasing 

 the operation of this canse, but their effect can be but 

 temporary, as they never exist for any length of time. 

 On the contrary, inequality between the production and 

 consumption is, from the nature of the cause, more 

 permanent, as the business and habits of large masses 

 of men are changed slowly and at long intervals. 



The prices of agricultiu'al produce which have ex- 

 isted for a year or two in this country, and which 

 appear to have excited so much surprise, we consider 

 the natural result of a disparity between the production 

 and the consumption, the latter exceeding the former. 

 The producers of food, or in other words the farmers, 

 have not increased in a ratio corresponding to that of 

 the consumers, or the other classes above enumerated. 

 The professional classes in our country have increased 

 in a greater proportion than that of the farmers, and, 

 taken with the other non-producers but consumers of 

 food, no other results than what we witness could have 

 been anticipated. A large proportion of the sons of 

 farmers have chosen other kinds of business or profes- 

 sions named than that of their parents, — manufactures, 

 commerce, mechanics, the professions, and, in too many 

 instances, living by "hook or by crook," have been 

 preferred to the honorable occupation of the farmer ; 

 and, as a necessary consequence, the producers find 

 themselves more and more masters of the field, and 

 able to fix their own prices. 



Farmers can never rely on themselves for support: 

 they may from their farms produce what is absolutely 

 necessary to eat, drink, and wear ; but for many of the 

 articles that the conventional codes of society have 

 rendered necessary to appearance and comfort, and all 

 the principal luxuries of life, they must depend on 

 others ; and on these consumers they must rely for the 

 sale of their surplus produce. It is the real interest of 

 the farmer, therefore, to be satisfied with good profits 

 on his labor, and not, by charging exorbitant rates, 

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