96 PROCEEDINGS OF THIRTY-THIRD FRUIT-GROWERS ' CONVENTION. 



"Worcester County, Mass., farms are not selling as well now as they did fifty years 

 ago. High rate of taxation ; high wages for poor quality of farm help is the cause." 



"Farm lands in Washington County, Rhode Island, are greatly depreciated. The 

 sale of a farm at a fair price is a rare occurrence. The labor question and high taxes 

 play an important part in the decline of farming lands. Back from the trolley lines 

 foreigners are taking up many of the abandoned farms; only a few American boys are 

 taking any." 



"Cattaraugus County, New York, is principally devoted to dairying. Lands are 

 cheap and sales poor, on account of poor and scarce help. One reason of this is that 

 the young men of to-day are getting a good education and ninety per cent of them will 

 not work on a farm. Consequently the old people want to sell the farm. They can no 

 longer run it themselves." 



"In Columbia County, the correspondent says, '1 visited nearly every county in New 

 York State buying cattle, and it is a fact a good farm with good buildings can be bought 

 for one half to three fourths of what the buildings would cost to be replaced, in every 

 county I have been through.' " 



"Cortland County farms are neglected and help can not be had to work them prop- 

 erly. On 2^ miles of road through our town there are about eighteen abandoned farms, 

 meadows grown up to brush and weeds. A good many farms with fair to middling- 

 buildings can be bought for one fifth the price of a few years ago." 



"Tioga County, ' If any one wants to get rid of his farm he simply moves off and the 

 number of such farms is growing rapidly.' " 



"Hunterdon County, New Jersey; Butler, Beaver, and Clearfield counties, Penn. : 

 Farms are bought until very lately for the timber that is on them, but now pretty good 

 farms for these parts have sold for about what the buildings cost." 



"In many of the Southern States a great deal of the good land has not been culti- 

 vated on account of the poor and unreliable labor, and this is getting worse every year." 



" Columbiana County, Ohio, farm lands have depreciated, simply because our manu- 

 facturing cities are offering better wages than we can afford to pay and hence our young 

 men have drifted off to the shops and factories, consequently farms are put on the 

 market to get rid of them at lower prices." 



" Marshall County, Minn., the cause of falling prices is emigration of large numbers 

 to Canada." 



" Black Hawk County, Iowa," gives the same reason. 



"Andrew County, Mo., large young orchards have been chopped down so that the 

 land can be utilized for general farming. Scarcity of labor is the cause." 



"Davis County, emigration to Canada has lowered the price of land." Same of Pem- 

 bina County, North Dakota, also in Cloud County, Kansas, notwithstanding there are 

 millions of acres of virgin government soil distributed over the latter states. 



I quote the dark side of the picture all over the United States, for 

 the purpose of showing that California is not alone suffering from the 

 scarcity of help on the farm and being burdened with unjust taxes. 



But to return. When the farmer is worn out by a lifetime of hard 

 work, barely eking out an existence, scrimping to save for old age and 

 to educate his children so that they may take their places in the world's 

 affairs without being mocked, cartooned, or made a jest of; or even 

 if, at an earlier date, he moves to town at an increased expense to 

 give the children a little better chance for that much-prized education, 

 he will find that his Nemesis, unjust taxation, has followed him. For 

 he buys his little home, maybe three or four blocks from the business 

 center ; it has no income but is all outgo, and here again he adds in 

 taxes much more than his just proportion of the tens of thousands of 

 dollars that are often wasted for the purpose of alleged city government, 

 which he soon rinds is made for the sole benefit of a few blocks on 



