THE FARMER'^ COTEMPORARIES. 75 



abled to draw in salaries from the concern at times the 

 fine sum of $100,000 annually. Such cases are not at all 

 infrequent under the present regune. 



Of millionaire concerns, New York boasts of having 

 its hundreds, and Montreal its fifties. The Senate of 

 the United States has its twenty millionaires. How 

 many of these are farmers ? 



Mr. Thomas G. Shearman, the publicist and statistician, 

 states in The Forum, for November, 1889, that there 

 are seventy persons in the United States whose average 

 wealth is over 1137,500,000, amounting in the aggregate 

 to $2,700,000,000. The wealth of J. J. Astor is esti- 

 mated at $150,000,000 ; Gould, Stanford, Rockefeller 

 and two Vanderbilts are rated at $100,000,000 each ; two 

 at $70,000,000 each, seven at $40,000,000 each. Then 

 there are four at $35,000,000, thirteen at $30,000,000, 

 ten at $25,000,000, four at $22,500,000, fifteen at 

 $20,000,000, while there are fifty others who are worth 

 $10,000,000, each. These are probably overestimated, 

 but enough is known to establish the fact that the wealth 

 of the United States in the hands of some 250,000 of its 

 people is enormous, whereas the average farmer's wealth 

 is less than it was twenty years ago. 



However, in order to reduce this comparison to the 

 most severe test, we must show the position of the 

 proprietor farmer as compared with the ordinary wage 

 earner. Mr. Edward Atkinson's ' elaborate statistics go 

 to show that the average wages of the laboring class in 

 the United States is about $400 a year, and of the total 

 of the agricultural class $419. He states that "the 

 average farmer can be assumed to earn but a moderate 

 sum above that of the farm laborer." 



* " Distribution of Products." 



