Ko. 4.] KEW EXGLAXD AGRICULTURE. 121 



British Islands, To-day the agriculture of England is in 

 des])air. There is scarcely a farm in England that is not 

 in sioht of some great manufacturinii' establishment. An 

 enormous and prosperous industry is being carried on close 

 to the farms. The agriculture of England is in the same 

 difficulty that we are in in Massachusetts, owing to the com- 

 petition that has sprung up on account of the difference and 

 enormous change in methods of transportation. The opening 

 of the Suez Canal, which connected the great western world 

 with the Orient, has made the world one-half as large as it 

 was formerly. Take, for instance, the Argentine Republic. 

 Year before last that country, so distant from us that it seems 

 almost to the south pole, produced 75,000,000 bushels of 

 wheat, — almost as much, three-fourths as nmch, as the 

 United States is called upon for the European trade annu- 

 ally. More than that ; one of the smallest States this side 

 of the Argentine Republic, the little republic of Uruguay, 

 has come into the market with something like 10,000,000 

 bushels within four or live years, and they have but just 

 begun. The fact that our farmers are to-day getting 81 

 cents a bushel for wheat, instead of 58 cents, as was 

 the case six or eight weeks ago, is because of the partial 

 failure in Argentina and also in the East Indies of the 

 wheat crops. Up to and year before last the East Indies 

 produced 35,000,000 to 50,000,000 of bushels of wheat a 

 year, and that was made possible by the opening of the 

 Suez Canal. The fact is, that the farmers of the United 

 States hav^e been brought into competition with people who 

 live upon what w^e would call next to nothing. So far as 

 the East Indies are concerned, the people live in huts, on 

 earthen floors, with no furniture, and they subsist on a 

 handful of rice ; they work for 6, 7, 8 or 9 cents a day. 



You can buy corn to-day, to be delivered next May, — 

 what is called purchased futures, — in the market of Chicago 

 for 26 cents a bushel. These are questions that the New 

 England ftirmer has got to face. That he will be able to 

 face them I have no doubt, because we have a large popula- 

 tion. We have an active people, a fairly good agricultural 

 climate, and a great deal better soil relatively than our 

 people are inclined to think. We have a highly productive 



