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Page 6
=The market reports do indeed show an unprecedented decline in the prices
of farm products, except in a few articles such as butter, eggs, and
poultry, in places where increased population counteracts the tendency to
greater cheapness; but this decline is due to increased invention, and the
great cheapening in transportation.=
How much of it? The records of the Patent Office show, and the experience
of farmers confirms it, that all the improvements in farm machinery since
1870 have not reduced the labor cost of farm produce on the general
average more than 2-1/2 per cent. Here is a little paradox for you to
study. In the twenty-five years from 1845 to 1870 the progress of
invention in farm machinery was greater than in all the previous history
of the world, marvellously rapid, in fact, and during those years the farm
price of the produce steadily increased; but in the ensuing twenty-five
years to 1895 there were very few improvements, and the price has declined
with steadily increasing speed. This fact is either ignorantly or
skilfully evaded by Edward Atkinson and David A. Wells in their elaborate
articles on the subject; so I will present some facts and figures which
were obtained early this year in the Patent Office, and carefully verified
by members of Congress from every portion of the farming regions.
Since 1795 there have been granted 6,700 patents for plows, but since 1870
there have been but three really valuable improvements. Farmers are
divided in opinion as to whether the riding plow reduces the labor cost.
The lister, recently patented, throws the earth into a ridge and enables
the farmer to plant without previously breaking the soil. It is valuable
in the dry regions of the West, but useless where the rainfall is great,
as the soil must there be broken up anyhow. There have been 920 corn
gatherers patented, of which only one is considered a success, and most
farmers reject it on account of the waste. The general verdict is that the
labor of producing corn has been reduced very little, if any. In the labor
of producing potatoes there has been no reduction whatever, nor in the
finer garden products, nor in fruits. It takes the same labor to produce a
fat hog or a fat ox, a sheep, horse, or mule, as in 1870. In wool growing
many patents have been taken out for shearers, and three of them are said
to be savers of labor, provided the wool grower is so situated that he can
attach the shearer to a horse or steam power.
There have been since the opening of the Office 6,620 patents for
harvesters, of which the only great improvement since 1870 is the twine
binder, for which over 900 patents have been taken out. The beheader is
used in California, as it was before 1870, and in the prairie regions the
sheaf-carrier has recently been introduced, holding the sheaves until
enough are collected to make a shock. Counting the labor of the men who
did the binding after the original McCormick reaper at $2 per day, the
total saving by all these improvements since 1870 is estimated at 6 cents
per bushel for wheat, rye, and oats. Much of this saving in labor is
neutralized by cost of machines, interest, and repairs. There have been
nearly 3,000 patents in fences, over 5,000 in the making of boots and
shoes, and in stoves and heaters 8,240, none affecting farm labor except
the first. In cotton growing exactly the same processes are used, from
planting to picking, as in 1850; but out of many hundred attempts to
invent a cotton picker it is now claimed that one is a success, though it
has not yet got into use. The cost of ginning the cotton has been reduced
about two-fifths of a cent per pound. There have been 176 patents for saw
gins, 63 for roller gins, and 47 for feeders to gins, out of all of which
there has been a new gin evolved which will be in use hereafter. I might
thus go around the list, but enough has been said to show that nearly all
our farm machinery was in use before 1870, and that since that date, as I
said, the reduction of labor cost has not upon the whole field exceeded
2-1/2 per cent. The assertion that reduced transportation lowers the farm
price is in flat contradiction of political economy, as, according to
that, the benefits should be divided between producer and consumer, the
farm price rising and the city or export price declining.
=The price of what the farmer has to buy has declined in equal if not
greater ratio, and so his margin is as great as ever.=
It is evident that you are not a practical farmer. However, your
non-acquaintance with the figures is not to be wondered at when we
consider what has been said by great scholars and statesmen. I recently
heard a politician, and one of perfectly Himalayan greatness, say in
debate that a day's work on an Illinois farm would now produce more than
twice as much as in 1870, and another clinched it by adding that a man
could pay for a good farm by his surplus from five years' crops. Now go to
some practical farmer and get him to make the calculation, and you will
find that what he has saved by reduced prices is less than one-fifth of
what he has lost from the same cause. The average farm family in the
central West consists of five persons, and their greatest saving has been
on clothing. You may set that at $30 per year. The next is in sugar, for
which they pay but half the price of 1873. There is no other item that
will reach $5, not even including all the iron or steel they have to buy
in a year. The largest estimate of gains, unless they go into luxuries,
does not exceed $90 per year. At least a third of this gain is offset by
increased taxes.
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