182 



THE LANCASTER FARMER. 



[December, 



Good Fruit." Lastly we have the following 

 on peach trees : 



"Mr. William Phillips, of Pennsylvania, 

 has derived great benefit from the application 

 of air slaked, old effete lime to peach trees, 

 the effects of which, according to his own ac- 

 count, are very great. He puts about a peck 

 of lime to each tree ; he thinks it useful as a 

 preservative against the insect so fatal to 

 these trees. "We have then two applications 

 recommended, unleached ashes and lime, and 

 from our own exi)erieuce are able to recom- 

 mend both. We are not sure which has the 

 preference. The lime and ashes should both 

 be dug up every spring. "Washing the trunk 

 with soapsuds will also be serviceable to the 

 tree."—/. C. L. 



For The Lancaster Farmer. 

 A SURE PREVENTIVE OF CHICKEN 

 CHOLERA. 



Several experiments has been made during 

 the past five years by different parties for the 

 purpose of preventing the spread of chicken 

 cholera by inoculation or vaccination. We 

 have during the past two years vaccinated 

 tlie fowls in nineteen different yards where 

 the cholera was prevailing badly, and in each 

 yard left some common fowls not vaccinated 

 and they all died, but of the two thousand 

 vaccinated only eleven died, although they 

 were in the same yard with those not vac- 

 cinated that were dying daily by the score. 

 We have every reason to believe this chicken 

 vaccination will be as effective in preventing 

 cholera among fowls as vaccination is in pre- 

 venting stnallpox among the human family. 

 Vaccinate a hen and in eight days her system 

 will be thoroughly inoculated; then cut off' her 

 head and catch all the blood in some vessel, 

 then pour the blood out on paper to dry; a 

 half drop of this dried blood is sufficient to 

 vaccinate a fowl, and the blood of one hen 

 will vaccinate your whole ffock. Catch the 

 fowl you wish to vaccinate, and with a pin or 

 knife make a little scratch on the thigh (just 

 enough to draw blood), then moisten a little 

 piece of the paper with the dried blood on and 

 stick it on the cliicken's leg where you 

 scratclicd it, then let the fowl run and yuu 

 need have no fear of chicken cholera. As the 

 result of my many experiments I now have 

 enough dried blood to vaccinate, I should 

 suppose, ten thousand fowls, for which I have 

 no use, as I do not sell patent medicines. If 

 any of your readers are enough interested in 

 poultry to try this preventive, by writing to 

 me I will send them them free of any charge 

 enough dried blood to start with; all I ask is 

 that they send immediately, before the blood 

 loses its strength, and report the result of 

 their experiment to your many readers.— TF. 

 H. Griffith, Zanesville, Ohio. 



For The Lancaster Farmer. 

 THE BALANCE OF TRADE DELUSION. 

 Editor of The Farmer : I notice, in the last 

 number of your journal, that a correspondent, 

 S. P., of Lincoln, Del, undertakes to discuss 

 the "Balance of Trade" question, and appears 

 particularly desirous of a controversy with me 

 ou the subject. According to him my commu- 

 nications to the Faumer have been " fal.se in 

 statistics " and only deserving of " ridicule." 



I do not feel under obligation to enter into 

 discussion witli one who comes at me in tliat 

 meat-axe style on his first appearance ; but 

 lest some of your readers might be led to be 

 lieve from his confident and more or less 

 plausible assertions that they cannot be an- 

 swered, I will reply to one or two of the most 

 plausible ; but I am not going here to repeat 

 the arguments adduced in ray former com- 

 munications ; they may stand or fall 

 on their own strength or weakness, and 

 in respect to them I will only now say 

 that, in my opinion, they have not been con- 

 futed, and cannot be. I have no reason to 

 believe, as alleged, that there was an im- 

 portant error in the figures as I gave them in 

 1879, though, in adding up the long columns 

 of figures, it is possible tliat I made a mi.s- 

 take. (I have lost the Report from which they 

 were derived.) If I gave truly the summary 

 of official statistics as furnished by the then 

 Chief of the Bureau of Statistics, even if erro- 

 neous, and S. P. gives figures furnished by 

 Mr. Niramo, or some one else, and the two do 

 not correspond, does that give him a warrant 

 to charge falsification of statistics y Sound 

 logic and good manners alike will answer, 

 No. 



But admitting, for argument's sake, that 

 his figures are the right ones, and that our 

 imports were greater than the exports after 

 1860, as is admitted to be the case in every 

 decade before that time, and how does the 

 matter then stand ? It proves that not only 

 part of the time, but all the time, ever since 

 the United States was a nation, we have been 

 importing enormously greater value than we 

 have exported — been thus losing immensely 

 by our foreign trade — been going headlong 

 down the road to commercial ruin uninter- 

 ruptedly for almost a hundred years ; and 

 most "astounding" fact (to balance-of-trade 

 theorists) we are not yet ruined, but even more 

 wealthy and prosperous than when we set 

 out I 



Another fact equally astounding, no doubt, 

 to economists who think it is ruinous to re- 

 ceive more value than we part with, is that 

 England and other European countries of 

 which we have the statistics, show that each 

 one of them imports a great deal more than it 

 exports. And thus it has been going on, 

 decade after decade, each country being im- 

 poverished by its foreign commerce in the 

 same way with ours, yet their governments, 

 with a reckless and criminal disregard of their 

 country's welfare, making no effort to pro- 

 hibit a business so disastrous to their people ! 



Your Delaware correspondent bases his ar- 

 gument on what he regards as an " axioma- 

 tic " proposition, viz : "that all production 

 is gain, and all consumption is loss," from 

 which he argues that an excess of imports 

 over exports must be loss. Elsewhere in his 

 article he argues that it is because so many of 

 the imports are useless luxuries that we are 

 the losers by foreign commerce. It now 

 appears that he regards all imports, except 

 specie perhaps, no matter how useful and val- 

 uable, as injurious, and a loss, if in excess of 

 our exports. Thus, if we export .flOO worth 

 of corn or tobacco, and get in return $120 

 worth of cloth or salt, then the balance is 

 against us, and the country loses $20 by the 

 trade, because the cloth and salt are for con- 



sumption, " and all consumption is loss." A 

 ward about that. 



All grain, fruit, &c., is raised for the very 

 purpose of consumption, and in fact is con- 

 sumed, one way or another. Is it all lostV If 

 consumed by fire or sunk in the sea by ship- 

 wreck it is lost undoubtedly ; but if a farmer 

 feeds corn to his cattle and hogs, though the 

 corn is consumed, its value reappears in the 

 form of beef and pork. If he and his family 

 eat it, its value is restored to hi;n and them by 

 life conserved and bodily strength imparted 

 and increased. Is not that as valuable as the 

 money it could be sold for? Is not the very 

 opposite of this alleged "axiomatic" proposi- 

 tion nearer the truth, viz.: All the produc- 

 tions of the earth are or will be lost if they 

 are not consumed? Were it not for the bene- 

 ficent effects of their consumption, they 

 would be of no more value than the dirt in 

 the road, and it is only by ana through con- 

 sumption that mankind and all the animal 

 kingdom are kept alive. 

 ' Exports represent consumption, the same 

 as corn fed to the hogs. We get back the value 

 of the exports by our imports and in no other 

 way. Were it not that in place of the ex- 

 ports we could import something of greater 

 value, we would never export anything, for it 

 would be a losing business. Were it not for the 

 imports the exports might as well be thrown 

 in the fire for all the good we would derive 

 from them. 



I have not claimed, as iusinnated by S. P., 

 that under all circumstances exeess of imports 

 must be a gain, but that such excess is not a 

 proof of loss. 



A few words about luxuries, of which S. P. 

 alleges we import and consume hundreds of 

 millions worth every year, that amount to 

 nothing of value. When a former, say, has 

 supplied himself and family with the essen- 

 tials of life — plain food and clothing, is out of 

 debt, and has a surplus of grain or wool, or 

 tobacco, and he thinks proper to dispose of 

 part of the surplus in exchange for unessentials 

 or luxuries, such for instance as tea or 

 coffee for his breakfast, silk dresses or 

 jewelry for his ivife and daughters, a piano 

 for his parlor, pictures for his rooms, a pleas- 

 ure carriage for the family, toys for his chil- 

 dren, and many other articles of luxury, does 

 the satisfaction derived from the possession of 

 those things "amount to nothing" of value. 

 If he prefers them to the money they cost, is 

 he not entitled to have his choice, and would 

 it would not be a great impertinence for S. P. 

 to come and tell him — "/don't care for those 

 things — 1 don't value them a cent, and if you 

 got them from abroad in exchange for your 

 grain, you are a foolish man and a bad citi- 

 zen, wasting your means and impoverishing 

 your country !" Is nothing )mt coarse food 

 and clothing of any value V Is all decoration 

 and ornamentation nothing but criminal 

 waste ? Is the wild Indian whose food is 

 only corn-bread and bear meat, and whose 

 clothing is but a sini;le blanket, the model 

 we should pattern after? 



It is said tliat instead of luxuries we should 

 only import tilings of real utility, and above 

 all, money. Now, we do not buy luxuries 

 because they are imported. We import them 

 because we want them, and because we can 

 procure them more advantageously abroad 



