1893 
821 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER. 
THE PROSPECT. 
Last week we gave the greater part of the address 
tof Secretary Morton, which has excited so much com¬ 
ment. The extract given contained all the ponts that 
are really at issue. We have not the space for the 
remainder, but the following careful synopsis will in. 
dicate wbat he said further. He stated that those who 
declare the accumulation of great wealth a crime, are 
“ most vicious teachers.” The first duty of the govern¬ 
ment is to stimulate the people to acquire wealth and 
the second is to protect each citizen in the enjoyment 
of what he has acquired, whether it be little or great. 
He claimed that an increase of wealth has brought 
increase of education and general intelligence, and 
broadened the sympathies of mankind. That is to 
say, very rich men are the only ones who can afford to 
act as philanthropists and endow or build up colleges, 
libraries, hospitals or other institutions of learning or 
comfort. We understand him to mean that if all men 
were nearer an equality as regards riches, these public 
benefactions would not be possible. “ Men will not 
voluntarily labor to produce for some one else, as they 
must if society is to control what is produced.” The 
Secretary made an elaborate argument in favor of 
accumulated capital. Society should place all its mem¬ 
bers on an equality before the law, but the government 
should conserve and protect the property of the people 
but never try to distribute it. The Secretary ended 
with this sentiment in which all will concur: 
Permanent homes for all the people, and as many of those homes In 
the country as possible, are the best Instrumentalities for strengthen- 
lnK popu'ar K^vernment. There must be a recession from city to rural 
life In the Un ted States during the decade beginning with 1894. A re¬ 
adjustment, rather, a reapportionment of population between city 
and country In the United States Is demanded to Insure the safety of 
the Republic, hove of home is primary patriotism. No conspiracies, 
no anarchy, are evolved In the quiet homes of the country, and to 
them, and the sacred and sincere love of them, the friends of dem¬ 
ocratic government must look for the preservation and perpetua¬ 
tion of civil llbertv In America. Only those who own and love the 
domicile whe;eln they dwell will properly and patriotically conserve 
the Republic. 
X t t 
The announcement is made that the Michigan Agri¬ 
cultural College will soon begin a short winter course 
in dairying. It is surprising that this college, the 
oldest and formerly one of the most progressive, has 
been so slow to adopt this popular feature of agricul¬ 
tural education. Probably the chief reason is that 
the long vacation at this college occurs in the winter 
at the time when most of the other colleges are hold¬ 
ing their short courses. However, it is better late 
than never. This matter of popularizing the teach¬ 
ing of scientific agriculture brings up the old question 
as to whether science is really a desirable thing for 
the pract'cal farmer to spend time over. The Mark 
Lane Express, the most influential English agricul¬ 
tural paper, takes the ground that a farmer need 
trouble himself only with results. For example, if 
he know how to destroy a certain insect and prevent 
its increase, that is enough without studying its life 
history. Or, if he know how to prevent a blight or 
rot, he should be satisfied without caring to know 
how that disease starts and grows. And the same, 
we presume, with the care of cream or the treatment 
of animals—if be know how to obtain results let him 
be satisfied and never mind the “why” of it. It 
seems to us that this is a very narrow way of consid¬ 
ering the matter. It is true that there is sometimes a 
danger of spending in investigation the time that 
should be spent in operation, but there ought to be a 
fair percentage of investigation in every man’s make¬ 
up, and especially should this spirit be encouraged in 
younger men. In this connection we are glad to 
print the following note from Mr. J. S. Woodward, 
relative to the short winter course at Cornell: 
X X X 
“ Every day which I spend upon the faym, the 
greater necessity do I see for a better knowledge of 
the business. I hq,ve tried all my life to learn what I 
could of the laws governing the growth of crops and 
the feeding of them to animals, and the longer l live 
tj;e less 1 seem to know about it. If I were only young 
again, how gladly would I seize the opportunity 
offered by our agricultural colleges to study deeper 
into these mysteries—for mysteries they are. What 
openings there now are for the educated farmer ! 
What facilities offered for the acquisition of knowl¬ 
edge ! Never before in the world’s history has such 
ample provision been made for the young to become 
educated- Scientific agricultural knowledge is liter¬ 
ally crying in the streets and begging to the young to 
come into her halls. 
“ I predict that these efforts will produce their 
legitimate effect. Agriculture is bound to be more 
successful, to be more respected, than ever before. 
Hut in the future the scientific farmer is to go to the 
front. Those who follow the haphazard ways of the 
present will stand but a poor show in the race. It is a 
matter of wonder to me that, with the advantages so 
freely offered by the agricultural colleges all over our 
country, they are not overrun with students. Look at 
Cornell, for instance, in our own State. Why, with the 
thousands and tens of thousands of bright boys and 
girls on the farms of New York, she ought to be so 
flooded as to compel the building of a hall for their 
especial accommodation. Just think of it ! She offers 
without money, without price, a full four years’course, 
a shorter two years’ course and, better still, a short 
winter course of 10 or 12 weeks. 
“ Farmers of New York, what are you thinking 
about! What a grand opportunity ! Why don’t you 
send the boys and girls up there by the thousand ? No 
matter if you have to go with one meal a day to do it, 
don’t fail. You want your boys to be in the front, and 
the training they will get there in a single winter may 
make the difference between success and failure. By 
all means make the effort, the sacrifice if necessary, 
and send them this very winter. - It will paj dollars 
where it costs cents, and you will never regret it.” 
X X X 
The first report of the new Secretary of Agriculture 
indicates that Mr. Morton is disposed to work with a 
very new broom. He comes right to the point on this 
matter of misappropriation of the funds belonging to 
the agricultural colleges and experiment stations. As 
The It. N.-Y. has often stated, in many States these 
funds have been used to benefit literary schools—the 
agricultural feature being a mere annex for the pur¬ 
pose of securing the money belonging to agriculture. 
The Secretary proposes a thorough investigation of 
this matter. This is an excellent suggestion, and The 
&• N.-Y. hopes it will be carried out. It is our belief 
that unless some of the colleges and experiment 
stations are at once overhauled and straightened out 
they will have to be abolished within 10 years. As to 
the seed distribution of the Agricultural Department, 
Secretary Morton shows that he has effected consider¬ 
able of a saving. He does not think the microscopical 
examination of our meats for export has paid, because 
it has not increased foreign sales. He seems to oppose 
the free publication of pamphlets, and reports of the 
Department and favors selling them at a small price to 
those who care enough for them to buy. This seems 
to us like a reasonable proposition. Certainly it would 
be fairer and better than the present system of farm¬ 
ing these publications out through Congressmen. The 
Secretary improves his opportunity in this report to 
make an argument in favor of free trade as a means 
of increasing our exports of agricultural products. 
This is excusable, from the fact that his predecessor 
used to give us arguments in favor of protection and 
reciprocity. We get the impression from this report 
that Secretary Morton is an opinionated man of very 
strong ai.d radical views, and we look for some very 
marked changes in the management of the Depart- 
meut - t t t 
The proposed new tariff bill has been given to the 
public. It will be known as the Wilson bill from the 
fact that W. L. Wilson is chairman of the committee 
that prepared it. Guided by the declaration in the 
last Democratic platform, this committee started out 
to frame a bill “for revenue only;” that is, one in 
which no tariff should be levied for the purpose of aid¬ 
ing any industry by artificially raising the price of any 
article of manufacture. It has always been claimed 
by the revenue reformers that the present McKinley 
tariff was arranged mainly in the interests of manu¬ 
facturers and corporations, and that the benefits to 
the common people were but secondary to those of the 
great moneyed interests. Therefore we had reason to 
expect that the new bill would be framed in the inter¬ 
ests of the people rather than to benefit the manufac¬ 
turers. l^et us consider the bill in its bearings on 
American agriculture and farmers. The keynote of 
the bill is <‘free raw materials”—that is, the tariff is 
to be removed on the crude materials that are used to 
manufacture goods, while it is retained, though re¬ 
duced, on the manufactured goods themselves. For 
example, wool is to be free while a tariff of about 40 
per cent is to be retained on woolen goods. 
X X t 
Of the articles directly produced by the farmer, 
wool, eggs, apples, etc., are to be free, the duty on 
potatoes reduced from 25 to 10 a bushel, that on barley 
from 30 to 12 cents, on tobacco and hay about one-half, 
and so on through the list. About The only .agricul¬ 
tural products that have the tariff retained are foreign 
fruits like lemons, oranges, grapes, etc. As to sugar, 
there is a reduction in the tariff on the refined article 
and a provision for the removal of the present sugar 
bounty at the rate of one-eighth each year. The 
object of these tariff changes is well understood. It 
is to give cheaper raw material for the manufacturers 
and cheaper food to the workmen in town and city. 
No one expects, for example, that the price of pota¬ 
toes in New York and Boston markets can be main¬ 
tained if even the potatoes that are fed to stock in 
Canada are sent here with only 10 cents tariff on a 
bushel. So much for what the American farmer will 
lose by the reduction in the tariff. What will he 
gain ? Those who buy their potatoes, eggs, cheese, 
etc., will probably get them a little cheaper. There 
are many special farmers who prefer to buy these 
things rather than to raise them. They will be bene¬ 
fited directly. Sugar ought also to be cheaper—all 
this supposing that a tariff really adds to the price at 
which an article sells. 
X X X 
The most important features of this bill are free 
coal, wool, lumber and iron ore, and a change in the 
method of assessing values. Will the farmer receive 
any benefit from free coal ? Probably not, except in 
localities easily reached from Canada, like New Eng¬ 
land, the Northwest and the Pacific coast. There un¬ 
questionably coal ought to be cheaper. The object of 
putting coal on the free list is to provide cheap fuel 
for the New England manufacturers, who are now 
practically obliged to buy the American product and 
pay for long railroad hauls. With coal on the free 
list they can obtain a much cheaper supply from Nova 
Scotia, and can also obtain cheaper iron ore from 
that country, Newfoundland and Norway. The great 
benefit to the farmer from this tariff change will be 
an indirect one and will depend largely upon the 
liberality of the manufacturers. With cheaper raw 
materials they can make cheaper goods. It remains 
to be seen whether they will sell them for a lower 
price. The same is true of wool. The farmer is told 
that with wool on the free list, while the price he re¬ 
ceives may fall, so also will the price of a good suit of 
clothes—or other cloth. That is, he can then obtain 
an all-wool suit for what he now pays for one that is 
one-third shoddy. We are not told that the shoddy 
goods will be any cheaper. The question is, does the 
farmer care enough about using better cloth to give 
up a portion of the price he gets for his wool ? The 
free-trader says that wool will rise in price because of 
an increased demand, but it will trouble him to give 
any illustration from actual history to prove his point. 
One thing “free coal” ought to do, if there is any¬ 
thing in theory, is to break up the coal monopolies, or 
Trusts, and take away some of the incomes now 
earned by railroads and canals. In fact, some of the 
tariff reductions will give a straight and clear experi¬ 
ment as to whether Trusts are really sustained by the 
tariff and whether importations of cheaper goods 
from abroad will break up manufacturing combina¬ 
tions. Farmers may also get some benefit from the 
fact that agricultural implements are to be admitted 
fx'ee. While we do not use many of the implements 
of other countries, it may be possible for Canadian 
manufacturers to send cheap tools enough like our 
own to force our own manufacturers down in price. 
These things are possibilities. 
tit 
Under the new tariff bill ad valorem instead of 
specific duties will be levied. To illustrate, under the 
present McKinley bill there is a tariff of $30 a head on 
horses. The Wilson bill will change that to 20 per 
cent. There is now a tariff of 30 cents a bushel on 
barley—that will be changed to 20 per cent. In most 
cases instead of charging so much per pound or bushel 
it will be a certain per cent on the valuation given by 
the importer. This bill will not raise nearly all the 
revenues required, and to make up the balance it is 
proposed to increase the internal revenue tax on 
whisky and tobacco, and also to collect an income 
tax. The details of this latter have not been worked 
out. When they are we shall explain them. We think 
the Wilson bill will be passed within six weeks, or 
delayed for a long time in the Senate. The Senators 
for Louisiana may demand more protection for sugar, 
and those from Alabama, West Virginia and Maryland 
may object to free coal and iron ore, and those from 
Texas may not like free wool. In the end, however, 
it seems to us that farmers would better make up their 
minds that the bill pass about as now given. The first 
effect of it will undoubtedly be to depress business, 
coming as it does on top of the recent money strin¬ 
gency. People will be shy about investments'for a time, 
and many manufacturers will shut down or cut wages 
of employees, just as, after the passage of the McKin¬ 
ley bill dealers put up prices to “ give the people a 
taste of McKinley,” so now we may expect wages to 
be cut to give workmen “ a taste of Wilson.” In the 
end, however, matters will surely adjust themselves. 
People must have something to eat and they must go 
to the farmer for it. The wise farmer in these times 
will study to raise his crops by methods that will give 
the least cost per unit. 
X t X 
Some months ago a convention of Southern gov¬ 
ernors resolved that the men who are to represent 
this country abroad ought to be selected from the 
South because that part of the country needs foreign 
immigration. That meant that our American consuls 
are supposed to be immigration agents. Well, what 
are they supposed to do ? They are supposed to look 
after American interests abroad. Wbat are American 
interests? The most important one is our foreign 
trade, and the most useful wox'k for our foreign repre¬ 
sentatives is to try to increase that trade. Everybody 
seems to agree that the bulk of our foreign trade is in 
agricultural products, and about the only possible in¬ 
crease is in articles of food. Messrs. Beid and Phelps 
did excellent service in this line in France and Ger¬ 
many, and the present auministration ought to send 
men abroad who know something about what this 
country has to sell. Judged by this standard, the ap¬ 
pointment of Mr. Van Alen as ambassador to Italy 
seems more ridiculous than ever. 
