212 



NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



JVJLY 





credit, which most be obtained at a price ruinous 

 to the purchaser. It will not require many bar- 

 gains negotiated upcn such a principle before their 

 ruin is complete ; and the manufacturers are swal- 

 lowed up in the same vortex which engulphs the 

 farmers. If, on the other band, the manufactur- 

 ing department suffers depression, the farmer's 

 best customers are curtailed of funds, and their 

 produce must lay in their granaries waiting for 

 that market which can only be revived by an in- 

 creased demand for manufactured goods. That 

 trade and commerce always keep exact step with 

 the progress of agriculture, the best statesmen 

 have long known, and have always labored to ad- 

 vance both, in order to make their nations pros- 

 perous and happy. 



The farmer complains that the present tariff 

 affords good protection to the manufacturer, and 

 but little to him ; but he must remember that a 

 tariff on manufactured goods is a protection to the 

 producer of the raw material as well as to the 

 citizen. 



The manufacturer does need protection against 

 the cheap capital of Europe, and the American 

 operative requires protection against the poorer 

 paid, yet better trained operative of other coun- 

 tries. For the foreign operative is trained from 

 almost infancy for that department in which, as a 

 general thing, he has to labor through life. The 

 American operative works in one department till 

 he is about able to operate a machine, then he 

 either has to move to another department or quits 

 the business forever. Under these circumstances, 

 the American manufacturer is always struggling 

 with badly trained operatives. The farmer, too, 

 complains of want of skill on the. part of his farm 

 help, yet it is not so serious upon the farm where 

 one skilful farmer can direct the operations of the 

 unskilled upon a large farm. And if the Ameri- 

 can farmer has to pay a much higher price for his 

 labor than the foreign farmer, he must re-member 

 he obtains his land at a much less cost, and that 

 wool raising requires but a small per centage of 

 labor. 



When the American manufacturer asks for a 

 protective tariff to enable him to employ the for- 

 eign laborer, — he only asks for protection to ena- 

 ble him to furnish a market upon his own soil for 

 the products of that soil ; thus finding a market 

 for the farmer at home in place of leaving him to 

 seek it in a foreign land. If all the manufactured 

 goods which are consumed in America were man- 

 ufactured here, we have little doubt but the whole 

 of the produce of the soil would be consumed by 

 the artisans employed in the different trades, thus 

 saving an enormous cost of transporting food to 

 feed the operatives in a foreign land, and bring- 

 ing the product of their skill here. The present 

 tariff on wool would be much better for the farm- 

 er if it did not favor the importation of the dirti- 

 est, poorest and greasiest wool produced in the 

 world — produced on the cheapest lands and with 

 the least cost of labor. The tariff we would ask 

 or the farmer would be one that would protect 

 him against this dirty trash, and bring him into 

 competition only with the wool raised on the best 

 lands, and with the best paid labor. A moderate 

 specific duty would speedily affect this. 



We earnestly entreat all to avoid extremes. If 

 the farmer should obtain a large tariff, the manu- 

 facturer must have the same, or the foreign man- 



ufacturer would soon drive him out of his own 

 market ; and then the farmer must seek a market 

 for his wool in a foreign market, where he would 

 have no protection but cost of transportation, and 

 perhaps a tariff operating adversely. Should the 

 manufacturer receive protection sufficient to ena- 

 ble him to pay an exorbitant price to the farmer 

 for his wool, he must have an equally exorbitant 

 price forJiis goods, which, when the people com- 

 pared with the prices in other countries, they 

 would speedily abolish all tariffs as monopolies 

 too grievous to be borne. Thus we should have, 

 as we have frequently had before, a principle car- 

 ried to such an extreme as to produce a reaction 

 that would destroy itself; and in this case, as it 

 has done before, it would fall heaviest on the farmer. 



For example : The tariff of 1846 proved very 

 disastrous to sheep husbandry, not only in this 

 State but in the United States. On referring to 

 the first article on this subject, it will be seen that 

 the great fall off in wool and sheep in this State 

 was between 1840 and 1850 ; and thourh there 

 has been an increase in the United States, yet that 

 has not been near equal to the increase of popu-t 

 lation or to the increased demand. In 1846, a 

 large number of factories, and the largest woollen 

 factories in the country, were employed in produc- 

 ing broadcloth which was equal in every respect 

 to the best productions of England and Germany. 

 A large amount of fine merino wool, equal in 

 many respects to that produced in Saxony, France, 

 or Spain, was raised in this and other States, and 

 found a ready market at remunerative prices ; but 

 when that tariff came into operation, our manu- ' 

 facturers could not compete with the cheap labor 

 and cheaper capital of the old world. The man- 

 ufacture of broadcloth was abandoned, and in 

 1860 there was not a single loom in the United 

 States weaving that kind of goods. The machin- 

 ery was employed in manufacturing medium and 

 coarse fancy cassimeres, which required a coarser 

 and longer stapled wool than fine broadcloth. 

 But the farmer could not change his sheep so 

 quickly — they were fine wooled, and with the loss 

 of the broadcloth trade, the value of fine wool 

 suffered depreciation ; the sheep were valuable for 

 wool only, their carcasses being small, their lambs 

 small, and the sheep tender, rendered them scarce- 

 ly remunerative, the breeds were suffered to run 

 out, and this completed the overthrow of the pro- 

 duction of fine wool in this State and seriously 

 affected it in every State. 



In 1845 the number of fine wooled sheep in 

 this State were about 200,000 ; in 1855 their 

 numbers were reduced to 72,390. 



In 1842 a few enterprising firms commenced 

 the manufacture of worsted goods, and were bid- 

 ding fair to establish that business upon a perma- 

 nent basis. This called for another and entirely 

 different class of wool, — a kind which has been 

 brought to great perfection in England, the rais- 

 ing of which has given that country the universal 

 control of the manufacture of coarse and medium 

 worsteds, and enabled her successfully to compete 

 with France in the production of the finer varie- 

 ties, although she has to import her wool for that 

 purpose. When the worsted business commenced 

 in this country, there was a demand for long 

 worsted wool, and some of our most enterprising 

 farmers imported some of the long wooled breeds 

 of sheep, with the intention of supplying the de- 



