90 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE. 



fied — " the treasury at New York." "Well, then, suppose you 

 take this promise to the proper place and demand your two 

 dollars. Your demand is refused. The United States acknowl- 

 edge the deht, but will not pay it. You are bowed out of the 

 treasury, politely perhaps, but more prol)ably with a scornful 

 expression at your greenness for supposing that the government 

 will fulfil its own promise. This, then, is a dishonored note, 

 precisely as your own note would be dishonored at the Adams 

 Bank after the last day of grace had expired. This note has 

 been long dishonored — eight years. It is not only not two dol- 

 lars, it is only an unfulfilled, long-dishonored promise to pay 

 them. But this is not the worst of it. A protested note neces- 

 sarily becomes depreciated. This note is depreciated, that is to 

 say, it is not worth two dollars. It was worth, on the average 

 of the fiscal year 1869, -^1.40, and on the average of the fis- 

 cal year 1870, -$1.70, as compared with coin, that is to say, 

 as compared with real dollars ; for the only dollar known to 

 our laws is the gold dollar composed of 25 4.5 grains of a metal 

 compound of which nine parts are gold and one alloy. This 

 note promises to pay two such dollars. No other kind of dollar 

 is possible. Government gave up long ago the attempt to 

 make a commercial dollar even out of silver. 



But the trouble with this note is, not any doubt about the 

 kind of dollar it promises to pay, but the fact that its own 

 value as a promise is so variable. At one time this very note 

 of two dollars was only worth 70 cents ; now it is worth !|1.76, 

 and it has passed up and down every one of the interme- 

 diate points. Now, money is a measure of all values, but a dol- 

 lar so variable in value as this, is totally unfit to be a measure 

 of anything. A uniform measure in the field of values is vast- 

 ly more important than a uniform measure of length or of 

 capacity. Would an india-rubber yard stick, extensible at will 

 and contractible without will, be a good measure of length ? 

 Would it be likely to give good satisfaction to all buyers and 

 sellers by the yard ? Would it or would it not throw our ag- 

 ricultural community into confusion, if the bushel measure 

 held three pecks at one time, four pecks at another, and five 

 pecks at another, and was constantly passing from one extreme 

 to the other through the intermediate points? Vastly worse 

 than cither of these, or both of them together, is it to have the 



