ITS CAUSE AND REMEDY 23 



he succeeded in getting the Hatch Fund 

 started for Schools of Agriculture, and to- 

 day we have the finest and most elaborate 

 Agricultural Colleges in the world, and yet 

 agriculture has been steadily declining and 

 our country from the Atlantic to the Mis- 

 sissippi is practically exhausted, and the 

 high protection of manufactures for the 

 cities as against practically free trade for 

 our products of the farm has so concen- 

 trated our wealth in the cities that the city 

 of New York alone has the same assessed 

 value as the seven Western States of Ore- 

 gon, Washington, Idaho, Montana, Utah, 

 Colorado and California. 



At the same time in the State of New 

 York are thousands of beautiful farms 

 abandoned, and thousands can be bought 

 for less than half of what the buildings cost 

 and that condition exists even up to the 

 Mississippi River. The farmers always were 

 loyal to the Republican party, because it is 

 the only party that has brought them any 

 degree of prosperity. Besides our fine Agri- 

 cultural Colleges, the Grange, Farmer's 

 Union, American Society in Equity and sev- 

 eral other organizations have attempted to 

 lift our rural life and have been completely 

 baffled. When the Grange first started 

 when I was just out of my teens, in 1871, 

 they undertook to take into their hands the 

 selling direct to the consumer and buying 

 direct from the wholesaler, and they forced 



