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328 



THE ILLINOIS FARMER. 



®lte §Uinai^ farmer, 



SPRINCJFIEtD, SEPTEVBER 1, 1859. 



The Times—The Causes. 



It is said, that, "to know the disease, 

 is ha f its cure.'' To understand the 

 causes which have brought distress upon 

 the country — paralizing industry, embar- 

 rassing merchants, and breaking up 

 many farmers, — may, to some extent, 

 lead to a remedy for the evils we are thus 

 suffering. 



We believe that one serious cause of 

 difficulty in the farming interest — and all 

 other interests are connected with its 

 welfare, was the high price of wheat 

 during the War between Russia on one 

 side, and France and England, on the 

 other, a few years since; connected ynih 

 this fact, was the excellent crops of 

 wheat the same years. The high prices 

 obtained for wheat and the abundance of 

 wheat, in the time adverted to, stimula- 

 ted the purchase of large tracts of land, 

 on credit, and hiring large amounts of 

 help, and all this mostly on credit. The 

 same state of things stimulated extrava- 

 gance in household economy. Every 

 thing the farmer or his wife or his daugh- 

 ter, or boys, fancied was purchased at 

 stores on a years' credit — expecting the 

 same good crops and high prices, which 

 would enable the farmers to pay for 

 these goods. We know that the wheat 

 crop has failed for two years to a great 

 extent — the farmers are unable to pay 

 their debts constantly accumulating — 

 unable or unwilling to go back to the 

 old system of domestic economy, which 

 had formerly made the farmers of our 

 country prosperous and wealthy. 



Let us go into this matter more par- 

 ticularly. A few years ago the farmers' 

 wives in this county scarcely ever camo 

 to town and did not bring butter, lard, 

 egga, domestic cloths and other domestic 

 articles, sufficient to pay for their gro- 

 ceries and dry goods. It is well known 

 that ten years ago the general merchants 

 of Springfield were able to ship to New- 

 Orleans, butter enough to supply them- 

 selves with stocks of groceries. There 

 were houses here that received hundreds 

 of pounds of butter every week day, bo- 

 sides other domestic articles of great 

 value. What is the condition now of this 

 trade ? Not a quarter butter enough is 

 brought into thia^^ywn for sale to supply 



the inhabitants ! To a prudent and 

 economical and industrious farmer, the 

 domestic demand for butter in Spring- 

 field, might be made a source of wealth. 

 Yet all our cows and rich pastures, and 

 grasses, and distress among our farmers, 

 does not induce them to give attention 

 to this matter. They have cows in 

 abundance; they are not milked, but are 

 allowed to run with their calves. We 

 used to see large quantities of cheese 

 brought into this market from Sanga- 

 mon County; but who sees a Sangamon 

 cheese now ? Farmers wives when they 

 came to town with their pots of butter^ 

 and their cheese, and chickens and other 

 articles, purchased "spun cotton," and 

 indigo and madder for coloring; but what 

 merchant hears an inquiry for these ar- 

 ticles now ? You do occasionally hear 

 an inquiry for cotton for working collars 

 or other "gimcracks,'' which will employ 

 the time of the mother or dausihter for 

 days, and be worth nothing after it is 

 done. And the young women will on 

 visiting town, see the women of the town 

 dressed up in fancy style, expanded by 

 crinoline, and they must imitate this 

 tomfoolery. And their purchases show 

 that they do it; and these purchases are 

 not paid for by their own worthy labor 

 in making butter and cheese and domes- 

 tic cloths, but they must be paid for — if 

 paid for at all — by the father out of the 

 miserable sales of his wheat, or the sales 

 of his hogs and cattle — or, perhans never 

 paid for until the Sherifi" goes to the 

 farm and carries out the collection law. 

 The young men, too, are at fault in this 

 matter. Formerly they were mainly 

 clothed by the cloths made by their 

 mothers and sisters, — made up at home. 

 Now, their wardrobes cost about as much 

 as those of the young men of the city, 

 We notice, too, a great dislike among 

 our young farmers and others to bring 

 common produce to Springfield, and sell 

 the same in the streets. Within the 

 last three years thousands of bushels of 

 potatoes, have been imported into this 

 county from the North — and thousands 

 upon thousands of dollars have been sent 

 out ol the county to pay for them. Can 

 we not raise potatoes in this county? 

 Or is the business of too little impor- 

 tance to those who wish to raise their 

 hundred acres of wheat, and who think 

 it beneath their aspirations to diversify 

 their crops ? 



We have been told of farmers who 

 have large stocks of horses, which they 

 keep from year to year, and which are 

 not wanted for working on their farms, 

 eating out their substance, and these are 

 kept because they cannot be sold at 

 fancy prices; — at the same time the 

 farmer is borrowing money to keep 

 along, — when, if he would sell off his 

 stock, he would have money to lend. 



The citizens of this city are supplied 

 with large quantities of butter and 

 cheese from the northern part of the 

 State, Wisconsin, New York and Ohio. 

 Our provision stores cannot obtain their 

 supplies from Sangamon County. San- 

 gamon County does not half supply the 

 demand for Butter. We do not see a 

 Sangamon Cheese now. We repeat here 

 what we have said elsewhere. We have 

 an abundance of cows, abundance of food 

 for cows, abundance of help, to make 

 butter and cheese, (we say, this, because 

 this has been done before, ) our farmers 

 are suffering for means which they could 

 realize from making butter -end cheese — 

 and yet, they not only fail to supply the 

 market, but even some of them come 

 into town to purchase Butter ! Shame ! 

 shame ! We cannot speak of this want 

 of domestic economy by any other words. 

 Sangamon County could now, with pro- 

 per effort, furnish our market with dou- 

 ble the amount of the products of the 

 dairy that she did ten years ago. Why 

 is this not .done ? Ask yourselves, far- 

 mers; you can answer this question. — 

 Have you fallen upon some better way 

 to pay your store bills and raise money ? 

 We ought to say that there are some 

 farmers who have continued to practice 

 domestic economy — who live principally 

 on the product of their farms — and who 

 under all the disadvantages of the season 

 and the times, have made and continue 

 to make money — live comfortably and 

 independent. But we tell you that the 

 habits and practices and extravagance 

 of the city, can-ied into the country, will 

 ever produce suffering and mortifica- 

 tion. 



The farm«>rs who have looked to wheat 

 as a means to pay their debts, are again 

 disappointed by the half failure of the 

 crop and low prices. The prices paid 

 for wheat will not pay what it has cost; 

 and we frankly say that we do not see 

 any reason for a material advance in the 



