33 —cent., and all cereals n8 per cent. The value of farms in 1880 was over ten thousand million dollars ($10,197,000,000), while the value of their products in 1880 was two thousand two hundred millions. The average increase in the prices of farm produce since 1816 has been more than 100 per cent., while the average decrease in prices of manufactured goods has been from 20 to 90 per cent. The British Agricultural Commission report in 1882 said: “It is safe to say that for the last two years the agriculture of America has been at the very flood tide of prosperity.” Does this look like being “robbed?” PROTECTION GIVES TO THE FARMER A LARGE HOME MARKET. Progress in Agriculture. i860. 1SS0. Number of farms........................................ $2,044,077 $4,008,907 Improved land, acres.......... ........................ Number of men. engaged in argiculture 163,110,720 284,771,042 (estimated).............. . ....................... 3,800,000 7,670,493 Value of farms............................................... 6,645,045,007 10,197,096,776 Value of farming implements...................... 246,118,141 406,520,055 Value of orchard products.......................... 19,991,885 50,876,154 Value of live-stock....................................... 1,089,329,915 1,500,464,609 Value of all other farming products.......... Not stated. 2,213,402,564 Of all the vast amount grown on our soil, ninety-two per cent, is used in home consumption, while only about eight per cent, goes abroad. And why is this? Partly because the old world with cheap labor raises nearly all she needs. England has little room for farming, but in her vast possessions like India, she has an abundance. In 1873 she exported from India three million bushels of wheat; ten years after this more than fifteeen times as much; about fifty million bushels. Will she buy wheat here when, at famine wages, she can raise it in India, also in Australia and New Zealand? There is no choice left for American farmers; they must depend on the home market. The more than three million persons in manufactures must remain there, and not be thrown upon the farm for labor. Were this to happen, farm products would be increased fifty per cent., with no larger foreign market, and prices would De so reduced that farmers could not earn enough to live. Already forty-two per cent.
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