V THE 



WESTERN FARMER OF AMERICA. 



CHAPTER I. 



INTRODUCTORY. 



The golden rule for successful trading is "to buy in the 

 cheapest and sell in the dearest market." Strange to say, 

 the American farmer * reverses this rule. He sells in the 

 CO cheapest and buys in the dearest market. For what he 

 £ raises he gets a lower price, and for what he consumes he 

 '^ pays a higher price, than the land-tillers get and pay in any 

 ^ other country in the world. This is a very singular state 

 ^ of things, and is well worth thorough examination. 

 ^ While the Western farmer himself neither receives nor 

 ^ seeks any legislative "protection," he is compelled by law 

 :5 to supply his wants, not from the cheapest sources, but 

 so from certain privileged establishments to which he has to 

 •pay extravagant prices. While he requires no State sub- 

 vention, because his occupation is of itself a profitable one, 

 he is heavily taxed to support unprofitable manufactures in 

 the Eastern States, and has to make good their losses out 

 of his profits. That this is hard upon him everybody must 

 admit, but no one can realise how really hard it is, or 

 how vast a sum is year after year wrung from him in this 

 way, without resorting to figures and setting it forth in 



* The word "farmer" will be used throughout these pages as mian- 

 ing the producer of all articles derived from the cultivation of the soil, 

 whether grain or cotton, meat or tobacco, &.c. 



31188/ 



