Do Poor Crops Help Us?

Secretary Bask, of the department of agriculture, and Mr. J. R. Dodge, the statistician of the department, ought to "get together." It is really a pity that two such eminent protectionists should take such contradictory views of the agricultura! conuition of the country. The secretary has recently issued his second annual report, and at about the sanie time Mr. Statistician Dodge made a report on the yield of crops per acre. The two gentlemen take strongly divergent views as to the present agricultural situation. The secretary- üncle Jerry, as everybody calis the good old gentleman - congratulates the president and the country upon the generally improVed outlook in agricultural matters. He makea a reference to the agricultural depression of 1889, when the Harrison administration went into office, and then he professes to find a vast improvement at the present time, with a still brighter outlook for the future. He sanguinely announces that "the cloud which seemed to rest gloomily upon American agriculture has been lightened, while the wise, economie legislation already secured holds out still brighter promise for -the future." It is tlie so called "farmer's tariff' which mafces Uncle Jerry happy and hopef ui. His cheerful outlook into the future is caused solely by the' existing high er prices for many farm producís. He gives a comparativo table, showing the increase in price of a nuinber of farm products, and has the delightful simplicity of mind to attribute such increase largely to the higher tariff rates recommended by hiin in a previous report. How refreshing tliis "simple childlike faith!" But why are those prices higher? Mr. Statistician Dodge supplies the reason. and strangely enough he, though a rabid protectionist, does not attribute these higher pricea to the influence of McKinley's higher duties on fann products - "tin whistle" duties, as Ben Butterworth called them. On the very first page of the report on the average yield of crops per acre it is stated that the average yield of corn for 1890 was the lowest ever reported, except the erop of 1881, and that the average yield of 1889, with which he compares it, was nearly one-half larger. The statistician finds, too, that the erop failure for 1890 was principally "in the corn surplus states." The causes of this failure were many. In one county the erop has suffered "all possible drawbacks;" in another are "half filled ears, soft and unmerchantable;" in another, "damaged by excessi ve rains;" elsewhere, "by midsummer drought;" elsewhere, "by f rost;" elsewhere, "by worms;" here, "by hot winds;" there, "by hailstorms in August," etc, for almost five dreary pages. All these disasters naturally resulted in a short erop. The erop of 1889 was over 2,000,000,000 bushels, and that of 1890 was nearly 500,000,000 less. This shortness of erop resulted in higher pnces, and it is this fact that makes Uncle Jerry happy. But what do the farmers think? Do they prefer to work hard all summer and make very poor orops, the surplus of which they may sell at higher prices, or to produce a large erop with the same labor, and sell their large surplus at lower prices? By far the largest part of our corn is consumed on the farm, and so far as thi3 portioii of the west is concerned higher prices avail nothing. On the contrary, many farmers are themselves at this time buyers of corn. Many Illinois farmers whose corn erop failed are said to be buying corn to feed their stock. Uncle Jerry'a hopefulness for better times for the farmers, owing to the "wise economie legislation already secured," is without any foundation whatever so far as corn is concerned. During the fiscal year 1890 we imported just 1,626 bushels all told, while we exported 101,000,000 bushels. The old duty was 10 cents a bnshcl; the McKinley duty is 15 cents. A duty of 1 cent or $1 a bushei would be equally worthless to our farmers, for no possible duty on corn can raise the price with us. Statistician Dodge reports that the potato erop yielded the lowest average, with two exceptions, ever reported. He says, also, that the acre&ge planted in potatoes was sinall in comparison with other years. These two facts, low acreage and Bhort crops, the statistician thinks, "amply warrant the advance in prices now ruling in all the markets." We produce about 200,000,000 bushels of potatoes in average years, and our imports in ordinary years are about 2,000,000 bushels- or one bushei imported for 100 that we raise. In years more favorable to our growers, however, our imports sink to less than 1,000.000 bushels. In 1889 only 471,000 bushels came in, In ordinary years, thereforo, the McKinley duty of twenty-five cents a bushel can have no appreciable effect on the home price. It is only in a year of scarcity, like the present one, that the duty becomes protective and lays its burden upoo the consumer. This burden of the potato tax, however, rests partly upon the farmers themselves, for a large part of the potatoes we import are used for seed, the potatoes grown in the colder cegions of Canada being preferable to our own, as they mature more rapidly. Corn and potatoes are but samples of ;he general character of the duties in the so called "agricultural schedule." Through the entire schedule runs the, manifest in tention todeceive the farmer, :o give him a stone when he asks for ïread. Any farmer of the most ordinary ntelligeuce can eee that as soon as the 'acts ai-e stated to him.