Plain Tariff Talks

" Wonhl you like to see some oppressed fuméis?" l'iiis wns Unolp Tniii's tnrltation to me the next day, as I stood at the postolllie, .1 tul li drove ui' lor hil Tribune umi hit letter. I said I should like to ro anyvvliere with liiin, and so cllnibed Into his wagon. Ui; drove a handsonie s)iin of bays, hiiU reaHy wunteil to uliow them uff to me, though lio would have died before sayinji so. "I have a rallier largish order for eheese.1' Mc said as lie l.-t t the village, " before I unswcr, l want to kuow what these people yonder are ïnin; to do tliis slimmer, and liow tuiich we can rely on tliem. So I urn sroltig out to see Z uiok Norton, insteail of waiting tor him. Tueslay s kt day to come to town, bilt my answcr tnaiHt be in Lomion to-inorrow. Sv. I LO U tiuU Uu " It was n liciiuliliil country we drove thioiigh, - Intervals t'or a liltle way. und tlien a hinken hill-country, wliicli I reremembered miicli more thiekly eovered willi lieinlock and spruee and pine than now. Indeed foity ve.irs as;o I knew eveiy inch of it. I ha) íMíed all these lu-ooks for ti out in tlie ¦uniiner, and knew soine of the wood-roads better tlian the farmers themselves did. But forty years had kept me uway trom my old haunts, mul I wus utoaikbod, h all men are who rcflfot on the {rowtli and gnin of everythiníí in America In that time. Uncle Tom was lather eager to show off the ciuaca of the change. Thus, when we paKsed a cliarming house and orchard, with pretty lnul) and jfaiden. "Tliüt's efí"," he said. "Jml eggs aud nothing else. Ther, - see that brown low building that's the lialchlii) lioiisc, - nolhing ci oli!-tailiioncd as setting hens now. Now do you know all of thetr business there, - that's oue of their yard?, - theie, that's another- all their business there was started by that lady,- well, she isn't iis old as you are now, - sh tHrtcd it the ycurher husbaud dled. Xiuechildren, you know, must do someltiinjf, and she sets 'en on e)!%ti. I remember the first time she carne down to me; she had nine dozeu egfis, 'and eveiy e.'g, Mr. Tcrry,' says he ' was hatrhed since Mondny.' They was all fresh, you 'e. Well, out of tl. at beifiuniiifi. ut of that nine doken has gTOWIi that pretty home, that stable, sous in college, sou iu trade in Liverpool; and all tliejr are doing, as you see there, it'. erai lï of it:" So, 11 a minute, he howed me a beautilul bit of garden ínTruoa. " 'l'hat' part celery," said he; " you don't see the cclciy now. More of it is cnbl)aa8. Vonder, where I caii'tshow you, is peas and Ican8 and such. But thev rely nio-il y on cabbajfes. Do you know, they tell me that cabbages is one of the thinps yon can't mate too many of. Cabhajjee is one, and orantes is anotlit-r. Thcy say the market liever breaks. Well, he built up that business; a very rood felfow he is- name is Mnrphy- he jfot a leae of that bit of liind ; Uu's owned it all long ago. lie begun ou cabbuges, and went into celery. 'l'hat' a pretty business yonder behind the trees. There, you ee that house now. Ef we were not in a hurry we'd drive up there and jet a rose for your buttonhole. Thst's a very pretty business. I don't cuppose he could ever work very hard. Bad lung, I guess- hole in one of theni, maybe, I don't know ; he looked delicate Uien. But he knew what he wa nbont. He built, thore beliIiK tlie chestuuts, lie built tliat little green liouse, forty by twenty. John Carnes made the front for film, on his own patterns, ye ir before John dled. And he just raised roses. Nothiitg alse, s I live Roses was not on the murket so mucl then. Bnt he would tnke a little box o cut roses, once a week maybe, down to tílirew9berry, yon know, and he told me ttlát tliey sold rejrularly for nine pence na we said then, apiece - a dol lar for eiglil roses. That's not bail business. He doesn't get tbat now. But lie has built up his business. The dealers know hls roes, and tliey go to New York and Philadelpltia and Washington. Roses are always in season - ood for a steady drink?" And Uncle Totn langhed, as he always did at his own jokes. " Ve, sir. That whole place Í3 made of roses; a ml we liave not, a prettier one." $ we drove mi, with id anecdote for esch pretty place we paased. Wlien we were walking up hill, to spare tlie team as we clinihed a hirher spur, Únele Tom took up iiís t.irill' talk arain. " Now that dude that was talking Cobden to lis 'l'uefday night really tlnuks tlmt tilia interval sliould be given to raising wheat, beca use we can raise wheat in America somewhere - and that we sliould send to Rhodes for our roses, and to Persia for our epga, and to Germany for our cabbages. I wish he might eat the egs when they cotnnie here. " He would not own It, but this is where you come out, about nll peí ishable articles like tho.se, wliicli munt be snld in twenty-four liours, or peihaps, for esfjjs, a lontrer lime - nfter they have been raised. Take milk, for nstuuce- wbat we are going to see. If you want a high prlce for your tnilk you must sell it near tioinc. Nnhody wants milk wliicli is a ni. mili oíd, They only buy it canued wlen they can't help It." " Me would say that all tliis perishable stuit' Usure of of a market, tarín" or no tnriti. I only wish he liad Peen this valley in Jim Biicbatmn's time." ' To sell perisliable stuff you mu9t have closely uuabited dties. That meansyou iiiuhi luive manufacture, i! you have to créate your iiiaiiufaetiiri', créale it, if you ineiin to have iny roses and ejrgs and ceiery and Irusli milk for break fast, even. Around every mauufacturing center, 1 i k - mis here, there growl up sucli a set of liar den farmers, 1 cali theiu, as we have Lieen passing; and then there comes thtte people I símil show you, the milk people, who provide our mechanica, our spinners, our wettvers, with what we used to cali luxuries, which have become tlie necessitles of civilized lite. When your ilr. Clevt'Und says that turiíTs do not benefit farmers he forgals, or probably lie never thouglit of, tliese jraiden furmei who take cure of tlie manufacturing towns. Not wholly. My friend, Mis. Egg-wotnn, Juwn tlioio, litM, km iiiii ín olW c'Miipflition witli Michigan men I know, w]i can send down a carload of eggs packed in oats. You see tlie oats are salable, so :li:it even the pMklaf costs notliiny. Now, if slie senils her eggs far to the market, she lias to buy sawilust, and sawlust py8 no frei;ht. But stil I the luis the help of three or fourdays in wliicli ;he Michigan egg is older tlian iicrs. Your egg has to bu above susplcion. " Were you ever in ltussia?" he asked. [ siiid I never bad been. " Well, you travel! through the south of Russia. They are the great ideal corn raisers. Teil me how inany rose tactories and how many ceiery factories and liow many cabbage factories you tind Ihere." We were at the hill-top now, thougli tbere were a plenty more hills before we carne out at idok Norton's. The rond went tbrough forest, but, to my furprise, the roail-way was guarded, not by au olil fashioned Yo:lnian fenne, but by wire fences. I asked Uncle Tom about this. Here was the chestnut tree rlguton ttie fence. Surely it would hve been cheaper to split out chestnnt rail. ' O no," lie said. " These farmers know too much ior that. It is not what you saw when you used to come here trout tlshing. Then, all of them that wen; so poor that they cnuld not jroaway, had their hands and tlieir axes. In winter they Imd little or nothlng to do, and they and their boys turncd out and split rails. But now, this very man wlio owns this piece of wood-lot, he and his sons have ndairy of eows trom wliicli they stil, well, two :undrod quarts ¦ day of milk. day in and out, lu our reglón, to the Fisbervllle peoplu and our peop'c, and attlie bnskrt-works- more tlian two hundred quarts. Tlüit U besides any butter he niakes or auy checse. But ive liim Ihe milk market beside, he can In faot, he need inore help tlian his own fainily. That Germán we passed just now work9 for lito, tlie year round. Such a business as that can't tffor? to send men outchoppinf; chestnut. Their work is worth more in the home dairywork, and he buys a wire fence witli the nioney the milk brillas hini. Mr. Cobden would teil liim to split the rails and send them to Slit-ffleld. and with the nioney to buy wire in Shellleld, and build the fence. But he does not fee it In that light, and Henry Clay did not see it in that way ; and that is not the American systeni. 1 Sell close at hand, buy close at hand ' - that is the American 9ystem. If thesliippers do not like it, I do not wonder. But I suppose America is for Americans, and not for shippers." So we came to Zndok Norton's. I was not admitted to inucb of the talk between them And as we drove home I observed that Uncle Tom was not much satisned with the result. My talk was more with Mrs. Norton, wlio looked on me from time to time, and when she found 1 was interested, sent one of the boys around with me to show me the out buildings, and all the detaiU of comfortable farming on an uplaud farm. They were four miles from the meeting house and town library. They liad not a neighbor for an eighth of a mile. But here they were, ready for a snow blockadc, with every comfort I could have asked for tbem. I noticed the best cyclopedia on the shelves, late and good magazines on the table, a jfood piauo in the sitting-room, and all the aspects of a comtbrtable home. When I remembered filty years aro, in (he same town, I could hardly beüeve the change whlch had come in its prosperity. I sald as much to Uncle Torn as we droïe home, aftcr hehad ünished histtrst broodinji on hls ill-suceess with Zadok Norton. " Yea," said he, "It is all milk - milk and freh butter. adok has so much of that business to do that he does not take hold eagerly about my cheese contract. All the uiilk he can raise and more he needs for the .-upply of these same villages I pointed out to you. His wife stands over liim, and makes hint leave enough to make the fancy butter he sclls at fam'y prices to yonr fther and to Kdwards and to me. Prosperity breeds prosperlty. We II wunt to get the best, and I like It, and yonr father llki's It en well ai "y one else. So I myself, by buying Mrs Norton's fancy butter, aui hnrdeniuK he husband's lienrt, so tliat he does no liaDker for tny offer about clicese. must go tarther back in the Iiilla, tbat' uil." "Now, do yon suppose," said Únele Torn, " tliat 11 tliis Industry would have been created bere if it had not been for the machine shops and the milis? No slr! V'ly, you remember what thls was in James K. Polk's time!"