FARMING IN VIRGINIA AND MARYLAND.

Otago Witness, Issue 1932, 30 November 1888, Page 7

FARMING IN VIRGINIA AND MARYLAND.

The British Consul at Baltimore, in a recent report on the agriculture of Virginia and Maryland, gives a very sombre picture of the position of the farmer there. He is in many respects worse off than the. British farmer. If the latter is hampered with rent, rates, and land tax, he is compensated with comparatively cheap labour, and his land yields him a return at least fourfold that of the American farmer. The latter lacks much that makes existence enjoyable ; he is without other society, the

High price of labtfttr forces him to be hw own servant, and to employ bis children at farm labour when they should be at school. No one who has not gone over a farm in the States in question can realise hot? really dirty the land is, not with the unobiiusive weeds which are the despair of the Enghsli fanner, bat tall, hardy, tough plants, almost arriving at the dignity of bushes, overshadow the fields of grain and rain the pastures. To inquiries on this subject, the farmer answers that labour. is dear and the land is his own. He has his own grievance also on the small profit to be got out' of farming, and the terrible competition and consequent low price of produce. -For some reason, known only to himself, he dreads' above all things the abrogation ot the land taxin England, which he professes to consider inevitable, and which he declares would prove the death knell of the American farmer. He does not understand why Freetrade England should thus tax her own produce while admitting that of the foreigner free. The price of land in Maryland and Virginia has fallen greatly in price of lato years. In Eastern Virginia the farmer holding 1000 acres is a poor man, and probably could not get more than £2 to £3 an acre if he tried to sell it. The commercial fertilisers are expensive, and the crops are sometimes in consequence very small. The average wheat crop for the two States is only about 6J bushels an acre, and it is therefore not surprising that the area under wheat diminishes yearly, for although high farming and lavish fertilising will produce a greater* yield, the price of wheat is falling. Mr Segraye describes dairy management in Maryland and Virginia, in spite of the increased attention given to it of late, as "in a deplorably bad condition," a large proportion of the butter sent to market being almcst unfit for human consumption, Oleomargarine is in many cases preferred •• to the often dirty, tallowy, ranoid butter of the country. This is the more remarkable because when a dairy has once established a reputation for good butter it can demand almost any price it likes. It is said that there are dairymen in New York and New Jersey who can always get a dollar (4s 2d) a lb for their butter. It is almost impossible to get really fresh butter in Baltimore. Tobacco is not proving a paying crop, and it is doubtful whether cotton pays. Both are most exacting crops, requiring all the farmer's attention; cotton also engenders improvidence in consequence of the prevailing practice of taking advances on the growing crop, which devour the proceeds of the labour and industry of the planter. The better class of agriculturists are convinced that their future lies in pastoral farming, the rearing of sheep and cattle, and the growing of fruit and vegetables.